You have a platform idea: a booking app, a business tool, a marketplace. The first version does not need to be perfect. It needs to exist soon enough for real users to tell you whether the idea holds. That is the role of the MVP, the minimum viable product. The question is how to build it.
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First, what an MVP has to prove
An MVP is not a cut-price version of the final product. It is the simplest tool that lets you test a hypothesis: “customers are willing to pay to solve this problem this way”. Anything that does not serve that test can wait.
Key point. Before choosing a technology, write in one sentence what the MVP must prove, and the list of three features without which it cannot prove it.
The two routes to build an MVP
No-code, with a tool like Bubble, means assembling the application in a visual interface: database, screens, business rules, without writing the code yourself.
Custom development means writing the application with a language and a framework, on infrastructure you control.
| Criterion | No-code (Bubble) | Custom |
|---|---|---|
| Time to first version | Short | Longer |
| Starting cost | Lower | Higher |
| Cost at scale | Rises with usage | Better controlled |
| Functional freedom | Wide, with limits | Total |
| Ownership | The app lives with the vendor | The code is yours |
| Changing a business rule | Fast | Depends on the team |
When no-code is the right choice for an MVP
- The idea is not validated yet and you need to learn fast.
- The product relies on screens, forms, user accounts and standard payments.
- You want to be able to change the product every week based on feedback.
Bubble bills according to the application’s actual usage. That is comfortable at the start, but consumption needs watching as the number of users grows.
When you need custom code from the start
- The core of the product is heavy computation, real time or large-scale data processing.
- Your customers impose strong constraints on hosting or data compliance.
- The product must work offline or integrate deeply with another system.
The middle route, often the best
Nothing forces you to choose forever. Many products start in no-code, prove their market, then rebuild in code the parts that need it, with revenue to fund that work. Rebuilding a product that works is a good problem. Having spent your whole budget on a product nobody uses is a bad one.
Questions to settle before you start
- Who is the user, and what precise problem are we solving?
- What are the three essential features?
- How does the money come in: subscription, commission, pay per use, Mobile Money?
- How will we know the MVP has succeeded, and by when?
At Aureva Digital we build platforms and SaaS products in Bubble or in code depending on what the project requires, and we tell you frankly when a route is the wrong one. Tell us about your idea and we will start with those four questions.
In short
- An MVP exists to test a hypothesis, not to deliver the final product.
- No-code lets you learn fast and at lower cost; custom code is needed when the core of the product is technical or heavily constrained.
- You can start in no-code and rebuild what needs it once the market is proven.
- First settle the user, the three essential features and how the money comes in.
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Written by Amadeus AvlekaFounder of Aureva Digital, designer and web developer based in Cotonou. Learn more
