We have to define what your MVP is.  

Because no, it’s not the app you have in mind.

When you decide to develop a minimum viable product, you're not building your dream application. You're building the smallest possible thing that can prove you're not completely delusional about your idea.

That's it.  

Your MVP isn't supposed to have seventeen features and a dashboard that makes us all weep with its elegance. It's supposed to answer one question:  

Will anyone actually use this thing?

This is where most people go wrong. Because they'll ring up an MVP development agency and start listing features. "We need user authentication, and a social feed, and push notifications, and an admin panel, and integration with literally every service that's ever existed, and also it should make coffee."

And you know what that agency will say? "Absolutely. That'll be £80,000 and eight months, please."

Because they get paid by the feature.  

They have zero incentive to tell you that you don't need half the things on your list. You want to build it? They'll build it. You want to add six more things mid-project? They'll add those too. Cha-ching!

This is why you need to understand what "minimum" actually means before you develop an MVP. It means ruthlessly cutting everything that isn't essential to testing your core assumption.  

An Example of a Minimum Viable Product

Let's say you have an idea for an app that connects dog walkers with dog owners. Your assumption is that dog owners desperately need a reliable way to find trusted walkers, and walkers need consistent clients. Sounds reasonable. Could totally work.

But you don't actually know if it works until someone opens their wallet. Everything before that is just a very expensive hypothesis.

So, your MVP isn't "Uber for dogs with blockchain integration and an AI-powered matching algorithm." Your MVP is the bare minimum that lets a dog owner book a walker and pay them. Can you prove people will do this thing? Good. Now you can build everything else.

This is why the word "viable" sits right there in the middle of "minimum viable product." It needs to be minimum enough that you don't spend eighteen months building something nobody wants. But viable enough that it actually tests your core assumption. It's a balance.

Some founders want to develop an MVP to show investors. Others want to validate an idea with a small group of early adopters. Some just want to test something with friends and family before going all-in. And some just want to build the thing and see what happens.

All of these are valid reasons. But they require different approaches to developing a minimum viable product. The version you build for investor demos might need more polish than the version you test with your mate Dave.  

Understanding what you're actually trying to achieve changes how you develop your MVP.

You've decided to develop a minimum viable product. You've ruthlessly cut your feature list down to the actual bare essentials. Now comes the fun part: figuring out who's actually going to build it.

Use AI: How to Build an MVP Without a Development Team

This is the newest option and sounds most appealing when you're lying awake at 3am thinking about your runway. AI coding tools have gotten good. You can describe what you want, and they'll create actual working code. Sometimes.

It's cheap. It's fast. You maintain complete control. You can iterate without having awkward conversations with developers about why you're changing your mind again.

The disadvantages are less obvious until you're three weeks in and your "simple" authentication system won't work and you don't understand why.

This is because AI coding tools are brilliant for experienced developers who know what to ask for and can spot when the AI has generated nonsense with the confidence of a toddler with a crayon.  

If you're technical enough to debug issues and understand code structure, you can definitely develop an MVP with AI quickly and cheaply. If you're not, you'll spend more time fighting with the technology than actually building your product.  

Hire a Freelancer: Can One Developer Build an MVP?

This is the classic move. Find someone on Upwork or through a friend of a friend, agree on a spec, and watch them build your dreams.

When this works, it works beautifully. You get someone affordable who cares about doing good work because their reputation depends on it. You build a relationship. Maybe they even become your technical co-founder.

When it doesn't work, you get someone who disappears halfway through, or delivers code that technically functions but is held together with digital tape and glue. Or they build exactly what you asked for, which turns out to be completely (and expensively) wrong because you didn't know what you actually needed.

The fundamental issue with freelancers when you're trying to develop an MVP is accountability and consistency. One person means one point of failure. They get sick, they take another project, they lose interest, or they simply don't have experience with the specific technology your project needs.  

Drag & Drop: How to Develop a Low-Code MVP

To develop a low-code MVP, you shift your focus from "how to build" to "how to assemble." using pre-built blocks. Here is a step-by-step framework:

‍

1. Define the Single Core Action

An MVP should do one thing well. If you are building a delivery app, the core action is "User submits an order; Driver receives it." Ignore "Nice-to-haves" like dark mode, profile pictures, or complex reward systems.

‍

2. Choose Your "Stack"

Low-code development usually requires three layers:

• The Frontend (The Interface): What the user sees. You can use Glide (great for mobile apps based on spreadsheets), Softr (best for web portals), or Bubble (highest learning curve but most powerful).

• The Database (The Brain): Where info is stored. You can use Airtable or Google Sheets.

• The Automation (The Glue): How the parts talk to each other. You can use Zapier or Make.

‍

3. Build the Database First

Map out your data before touching the design. For example, if you're building a marketplace, you need two tables: Items for sale (name, price, description) and orders (buyer name, item ID, status).

‍

4. Connect the Interface

Connect your Frontend tool (like Softr) to your Database (Airtable). Most low-code tools allow you to "drag and drop" a list onto a page and tell it to display the data from your "Items for sale" table.

‍

5. Manual Fulfillment

In an MVP, you don't need to automate everything. If a user clicks "Buy," you don't need a complex shipping API immediately. You can just have Zapier send you an email, and you manually handle the rest. This is "unscalable" but allows you to launch in days instead of months, and most importantly, test your idea before you invest in automation.

‍

6. Test and Iterate

Once the plumbing works, send it to 10 users. Watch where they get stuck. Because you used low-code, you can change a button or a workflow in five minutes without needing to rewrite hundreds of lines of code.

Low-code MVPs prioritize speed over perfection by enabling you to assemble pre-built tools to validate your concept with real users. This way, you can launch fast, handle tasks manually, and only invest in custom code once proven.

Hire an Agency: How to Develop an MVP for Your Business

Full disclosure: this is what we do, so you're right to think "of course they're going to say this is the best option."

The truth is most agencies are optimised for big projects with big budgets. They'll happily develop a minimum viable product for you, but they're thinking about it wrong from the start. They want to show off their capabilities. They want to use the latest technology. They want to build something portfolio-worthy.

You, however, want to test an assumption as quickly and cheaply as possible.

These are fundamentally different goals.

We (at Octogle) want to work differently. We help you figure out what you actually need to build. We push back when you're adding unnecessary complexity. We're experienced enough to know that your "essential" feature probably isn't, and we'll tell you so instead of charging you for it. That way, if all you need is to develop an MVP in 2 hours using AWS, that’s all we’ll do and charge for, until you’ve validated your idea and are ready to scale.

When you develop an MVP with an agency that actually understands MVP development, you get speed, expertise, and accountability. Multiple developers who can cover for each other. Experience with similar projects. Proper project management. Code that's maintainable.

You also get cost and timeline certainty. And this matters more than you think when you're trying to budget for building a minimum viable product.

Let's address the uncomfortable question: how much does it actually cost to develop a minimum viable product?

The answer is the most annoying answer possible: it depends.

The Upfront Costs of Developing an MVP

A genuinely minimum MVP—like, properly minimum—might cost anywhere from £3,000 to £15,000 if you're working with a freelancer or budget agency. That's for something basic that proves a concept but probably needs a complete rebuild if it succeeds.

A more robust MVP that's actually meant to evolve into your product might run £15,000 to £50,000 with a decent agency. This gets you something properly built that can scale without immediately falling apart.

And if you're building something complex—maybe it needs real-time features, or it's handling payments, or it's got intricate logic—you could be looking at £50,000+ even for an MVP.

The Future Costs of Developing an MVP

Here's what's more important than the upfront cost: the total cost of ownership.

That £5,000 MVP might need a £30,000 rebuild in six months. The £25,000 MVP might only need another £10,000 to add features and scale. Over a year, which one was actually cheaper?

This is why thinking purely about initial costs to develop an MVP is often backwards. You need to think about what happens next. If your MVP succeeds (and we all hope it will), what does it cost to turn it into an actual product? If it fails, how much have you lost?

The best approach is usually to build something properly from the start, but only build the absolute minimum.  

At Octogle, we’re a huge fan of turning tech dreams into reality. So here’s what you do next:

Step 1: Write down your core assumption.  

Not your whole business plan. Not your vision for world domination. The one thing that needs to be true for this idea to work.  

• "People will pay for X."  

• "Users need Y enough to switch from their current solution."  

• "Z is a real problem worth solving."

Everything in your MVP should directly test this assumption. Everything else gets cut.

Step 2: Work backwards from testing.  

What's the minimum possible feature set that lets you test your assumption with real users and real money? Not "what would be nice to have." Not "what competitors have." What's truly minimum?

Step 3: Choose a Method

Be honest about your technical capability and time constraints.  

Can you actually build this yourself, or will you spend six months learning before you write a single line of useful code? Do you have time to manage a freelancer, or do you need someone who can run the whole project? How fast do you actually need to move?

Step 4: Talk to Experts

If you're serious about building a minimum viable product that could become your actual product, talk to people who've done this before. Not just developers—actual founders who've been through the process. Ask them what they'd do differently. Ask them what they wish they'd known. Ask them what really mattered and what didn't.

Step 5: Prepare for Issues

This is the bit that makes people uncomfortable. Accept that you're going to make mistakes. Your first feature list will be wrong. Your first design will need changes. Your core assumption might be completely off.  

That's fine. That's literally the point of an MVP. You're building something to learn, not to be perfect.

When you look at it that way, the choice gets a lot simpler.

‍

Now stop reading articles about how to build an MVP and take the next steps to build one. If you’d like our experts of developers and founders to guide you, we’d be more than happy to help you with a free consultation. Let’s talk.