In this session we'll talk about how to create effective MVP's by understanding the customer requirements, aligning KPI's with your technical prowess and how to think outside the development circle and consider the bigger picture.

1. N O T S O R I S K Y B U S I N E S S …
C R E A T I N G E F F E C T I V E M V P ' S
B OY D L E E P O L L E N T I N E ( @ B OY D L E E P )

2. W H O A M I ?

3. W H A T I S A N M V P ?

4. W A I T !
I’m assuming you’ve gone through product
discovery?
Everyone has an idea - someone has
probably already had yours…

5. N A H , A L L G O O D .
I D I D M Y R E S E A R C H ; - )

6. W H A T I S A N M V P ?

7. M I N I M U M V I A B L E P R O D U C T
The minimum set of features you need to
implement to make a product realise it’s
maximum potential.

8. (c) Adam Smith

9. M I N I M U M V I A B L E P R O D U C T
Or in developer terms:
Build it the best way you know how, without
additional complication and without the
overhead of acquiring new skills.

10. Tech stack you should
be aiming for
Technology that is
stable, cheap and
effective
Technology that meets
tomorrow’s requirements
today
Stability +
Productivity

11. 3 G O L D E N RU L E S
1 ) T H E G O L D I L O C K S C R I T E R I A :
T O O L I T T L E F E A T U R E S W I L L H O L D Y O U B A C K ,
T O O M A N Y F E A T U R E S W I L L B O G Y O U
D O W N .
L O O K F O R T H E S O L U T I O N T H A T P R O V I D E S J U S T
T H E R I G H T S E T O F F E A T U R E S N O W A N D A L L O W S
Y O U T O A D D N E W F E A T U R E S E A S I L Y A S Y O U
N E E D T H E M .

12. 3 G O L D E N RU L E S
2 ) C O R E V I T A L I T Y
H O W V I T A L A N D C E N T R A L I S T H I S
P R O D U C T O R S E R V I C E T O T H E S T R A T E G I C
G O A L S O F T H E A P P ? I F T H E A P P C A N
S U R V I V E W I T H O U T I T , G E T R I D O F I T !

13. 3 G O L D E N RU L E S
3 ) S I Z E M A T T E R S !
D O Y O U R E A L L Y W A N T T O R I S K Y O U R A P P B U I L D
O N T H E T I N Y , S H I N Y N E W P R O D U C T T H A T 3
P E O P L E A R E U S I N G ? O N T H E O T H E R H A N D I F T H I S
I S A N O P E N - S O U R C E F R A M E W O R K T H A T I S H E A V I L Y
U S E D B Y F O R T U N E 5 0 C O M P A N I E S , E V E N I F T H E
C O R E T E A M I S R E L A T I V E L Y S M A L L , H A V E N O F E A R .
W E W I L L T A L K A B O U T S O M E O F T H E S E T H I N G S I N
D E P T H L A T E R O N …

14. G R E A T !
W E K N O W W H A T A N M V P I S !

15. I ’ M R E A D Y T O B U I L D !

16. W E L L , N O …

17. F O C U S O N T H E
P RO B L E M
N O T T H E
F EAT U R ES

18. W H A T A R E Y O U R
K P I ’ S ?
W H A T B E N E F I T D O E S
Y O U R M V P B R I N G ?
H O W D O Y O U S H O W T H E
C U S T O M E R M A X I M U M K P I
E F F E C T I V E N E S S
I N A M I N I M A L W A Y ?

19. U N D E R S T A N D I N G
P R O B L E M S

20. W E W A N T T O B E A B L E T O
S E N D S T U D E N T S A N E M A I L
T O T H E I R M O B I L E P H O N E

21. W E W A N T T O B E A B L E T O
S E N D S T U D E N T S A N E M A I L
T O T H E I R M O B I L E P H O N E

22. W E N E E D T O B E A B L E T O
C O N T A C T S T U D E N T S
W H E R E V E R T H E Y A R E , T O
K E E P T H E M A C T I V E A N D
E N G A G E D .
ACTUAL PROBLEM

23. Research
Document.
Iterate.

24. C A N W E J U S T B U I L D
S O M E T H I N G N O W ?

25. 4 K E Y D E V E L O P M E N T
A R E A S
• Back end services
• Applications (mobile, web or otherwise)
• Integrations
• Scaling

26. 1 . B A C K E N D S E R V I C E S

27. A V O I D T H E P A T H O F R E L I A N C E
• Think using an MBaaS or third party “free” service will
save you time and money? Think again.
• Choose technology that has stood the test of time.
• Choose a development stack that lets you start
cheaply and expand at a rapid rate when required.
• Use third party software, but it must be either open-
source or have excellent support infrastructure!

29. F U D D Y D U D D Y
S O F T W A R E
Don’t be afraid to use old
and uncool languages and
software. PHP for example
gets a bad rap from
developers but it IS proven,
you can host it for next to
nothing and developers are
plentiful!
Try saying the same about
Go, Scala, Flex, Erlang, etc…

30. 2 . A P P D E V E L O P M E N T

31. W O R R Y L E S S A B O U T
T E C H N O L O G Y A N D
M O R E A B O U T
D E S I G N
F O C U S E D D E S I G N

32. W H E N I T C O M E S T O T H E T E C H
DO YOU GO CROSS PLATFORM OR NATIVE?
WEB BASED OR NOT?
MAINTENANCE?
DEVELOPMENT SUPPORT?

33. N A T I V E A P P R O A C H
• More fine grained control
• Quicker turnaround for features and new API support
• Fewer “weird” issues…

34. W E B B A S E D A P P R O A C H
• Quick to build, quicker to market
• Finding or training developers is easier as long as they
have some kind of web-dev experience.
• A lot better than it used to be…

36. C R O S S P L A T F O R M A P P R O A C H
• Best of both worlds,
• Can have unseen drawbacks and strange issues that
native developers wouldn’t have to face.
• A lot of unknowns in this current marketplace…

38. 3 . I N T E G R A T I O N S

39. C O N S I D E R B O T T L E N E C K S
• The bottlenecks in your app are often not the first
place you’ll look.
• Push notification queues,
• Messaging/email queues,
• Build server / processes

40. D O N ’ T F O R G E T T H E B O R I N G B I T S
• Is the client intending on doing a lot of reporting? Then choose a
relational database.
• How easy / expensive is it to ensure proper backups?
• Implementing analytics?
• What are the costs of bandwidth and data?
• SUPPORT.
• SECURITY.
• DOCUMENTATION.

41. T E M P T E D T O B U I L D A N D R U N I T A L L
Y O U R S E L F ?
Don’t take the “I’ll just run it myself” approach, like many
developers tend to do… e.g. your own push server for
an app?
At least $20 a month plus bandwidth, plus support, plus
maintenance…. so at least double, if not triple your initial
estimates on everything.

42. 4 . S C A L I N G

43. W E O F T E N F O R G E T A B O U T T H E
H U M A N C O S T I N D E V E L O P I N G
S O F T W A R E , E S P E C I A L L Y W H E N
T H A T C O S T I S U S .

44. J U S T P U T I T O N A W S ?
• Who manages the network and hardware? You or the
client?
• Is PaaS a better option than straight up Cloud?
• How fast do you intend to scale?

45. W H A T H A P P E N S I F Y O U ’ R E N O T
A V A I L A B L E ?
• You’re on an 8 hour flight and your server goes down.
Who is responsible?
• Any response is better than no response.

46. Research
Document.
Iterate.

47. have fun