What an MVP is, and what it isn't
A minimum viable product is the smallest version of your idea that real users can use, and that answers the question you most need answered. Usually that question is "will anyone use this?" or "will anyone pay for this?"
It is not a prototype that only works in a demo, and it is not version one of everything on your roadmap. If a feature does not help answer the question, it waits.
"If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late."
Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn
How fast is fast
Two products our engineers shipped show the range:
- Hoo.be, a link-in-bio platform for creators: the MVP went live in one week.
- AirYoda, a social audio matchmaking app: iOS and Android apps launched in four weeks.
Your timeline goes in the written plan. The biggest factors are rarely the technology: they are how many user types you start with, how many third-party integrations you need on day one, and how quickly decisions get made on your side.
How we build it
- Scope call. Thirty minutes on what you are building, who it is for and what the MVP has to prove. Free.
- Written plan. Screens, features, team, timeline and the price, in writing, before any work starts. Anything not in the plan is listed as "later", so nothing is forgotten and nothing sneaks in.
- Two-week sprints. A working demo at the end of every sprint, on a real URL or a test build on your phone, and a Loud Report every Friday with what shipped, what is blocked and the hours.
- Launch and run. We ship it, host it and monitor it, then keep improving it or hand it to your team.
What it costs
We price each MVP from a written plan rather than guess, because two "simple apps" can differ by months of work. To give you a sense of scale, MVP teams are built from the same roles and monthly prices on our public rate card:
Team | Good for | Monthly cost at our rates |
|---|---|---|
One senior full-stack engineer | A web app with one main user type | $3,500 |
Two senior engineers and a lead | Web plus mobile, or several integrations | From $10,600 |
Product team: PM, design, engineering, QA | A larger first release that we manage end to end | Custom, quoted in the plan |
Design, hosting and third-party services such as payments or maps are listed separately in the plan, so you see every line before you agree.
The stack we usually pick
We choose boring, well-supported technology so your next engineers can pick it up.
- Web apps: Next.js and React with TypeScript, a Node.js or Python backend and Postgres. See hire Next.js developers for what that team looks like.
- Mobile apps: Flutter or React Native, one codebase for iOS and Android. Our Flutter page explains when we pick which.
- AI features: built on Claude or OpenAI models, grounded in your own data. See hire AI engineers.
What to cut from your first version
The fastest MVPs are the ones with the shortest list. These are usually safe to leave out of version one:
- Admin panels. Use the database tool or a spreadsheet until you know what you need to manage.
- Settings pages. Pick sensible defaults and let users ask for options.
- More than one user type. Build for the person you most need to convince.
- Custom design for every screen. A clean component library looks professional and costs a fraction.
- Automation of rare tasks. If it happens once a week, do it by hand for now.
What you should not cut: sign-up that works, the one core action users came for, basic analytics to see what they do, and error tracking so you hear about bugs before your users tell you.
After launch
An MVP is the start of the work, not the end. After launch you can keep the same team on a monthly plan to build what the data says to build next, scale down to one engineer, or take everything in-house. Either way the code lives in your repositories and belongs to you from the first commit.
If you are deciding between building with a vendor and adding engineers to your own team, our comparison of staff augmentation and outsourcing walks through the trade-offs.