Avoiding MVP Failures and Accelerating Towards Success

With companies working on numerous projects at once and trying their best to ensure timely, high-quality software delivery, there are challenges that prevent them from striking the right balance. This eventually leads to MVP failure and unhappy clients.

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make here is trying to achieve everything with an MVP. While it’s important for the MVP to be functional in order to validate product-market fit, by trying to achieve everything, you might end up with nothing.

It’s like creating a salad by adding literally everything you find in your refrigerator. No one would like to have a bite of it. 

Therefore, in this blog, we’ll demystify some of the most common errors that lead to MVP failures.

Why Do MVPs Fail?

An MVP enables you to gather user and client feedback in the early stages of your project. It even helps SMBs and startups unlock funding, accelerate growth, and disrupt their industry.

However, according to Joistic, over 90% of companies end up with failed MVPs, and this eventually leaves their project absolutely nowhere. 

These failure rates reveal that creating a successful MVP is much harder than simply whipping together a basic first version of a digital product. To maximize potential and make your MVP fail-proof, founders need to be vigilant to subtle warning signs that indicate if their initial product is going dangerously off the rails.

Read More: The Merits of Building a Minimum Viable Product

Here are some of the reasons why most MVPs fail:

• Poor Code Quality: Unmaintainable code makes products buggy and unable to adapt to new features. Refactoring becomes endless.
• Lack of Technical Oversight: Without skilled technical leadership like an experienced CTO, engineering best practices get ignored, leading to technical debt and architectural problems.
• Wrong Technology Decisions: Picking development platforms unsuited for long-term needs results in brittle products that are expensive to run and difficult to scale up.
• Feature Bloat: Overstuffing MVPs with non-essential features steals focus from validating core product value. It also delays delivery and makes product direction unclear.
• Developer Churn: Constant developer turnover disrupts momentum, leaves knowledge gaps, and strains new team members having to onboard mid-stream.
• Weak UI/UX: Even if functionally sound, products are doomed if they have poor, confusing, or frustrating user experiences that fail to meet user needs.
• Delayed Launch: The longer an MVP takes to launch, the greater the chance of wasted effort if technologies have evolved, rendering it outdated.

Avoiding MVP Failures

MVP development can help validate a product idea quickly before committing to a complete build. However, MVPs come with their own risks if early warning signs are ignored. Here are four critical red flags to watch for in MVP projects:

1. Lack of Clear MVP Definition

Without properly defining what constitutes an MVP’s minimal feature set, teams risk scope and lose sight of the validation objective. Signs of an ill-defined MVP include confusion over must-have features versus nice-to-haves and continuously shifting priorities.

The perfect solution to this problem is revisiting core hypotheses, hard-locking critical features, and establishing governance protocols around new requests.

2. Inappropriate Technical Shortcuts

In the race to launch an MVP fast, teams often compromise on technology decisions in ways that cause pain later. Shortcuts like lack of extensibility, technical debt, and hard coding lead to significant reworks down the road.

Audit architecture with an eye toward sustainability beyond the MVP to avoid costly refactoring cycles.

3. Feedback and Iteration Neglect

The key value of an MVP is learning through real-world usage and feedback. When product teams neglect this step by failing to build in measurement or shirking data analysis, MVPs fail their core purpose.

Prioritize putting measurement infrastructure and feedback loops in place early in launch plans.

4. No Path Beyond MVP

MVPs should serve as stepping stones towards an eventual complete product. When teams lack vision for subsequent iterations and growth beyond the initial prototype, its value is constrained, leaving stakeholders puzzled about future direction.

Define pathways for how the MVP slots into a broader roadmap narrative that leads to a flawless product that resonates with user expectations.

Catching issues early allows for on-the-fly adjustments that get MVPs back on track to deliver maximum validating learning potential with minimal wasted effort. Maintain vigilance around common trouble spots.

Read More: How To Revive Flawed Minimum Viable Products (MVPs)

How Leading Global Enterprises Used MVPs

Meta

Facebook, now known as Meta, started as a simple website called ‘Facemash,’ created by Mark Zuckerberg to socialize with his college mates. It started gaining traction and soon turned into the biggest social platform globally that we all know and love. 

However, in its early days, Facebook only operated on selected college campuses. It focused narrowly on profile creation, friend connections, and simple sharing capabilities as the MVP before eventually expanding features like photos, events, groups, and the news feed in later iterations guided by emerging user needs.

Spotify

Back in 2008, Spotify started as a desktop-only application with limited features—no playlists, no radio, no subscriptions. The initial MVP focused solely on allowing users to search for and stream music for free with ads, validating the core value proposition of on-demand streaming.

With millions of users signing up to the platform, Spotify started introducing new features like premium subscriptions, mobile support, playlists, charts, song recommendations, and social sharing capabilities in later iterations, guided by data on how people used the platform. Keeping the MVP simple helped Spotify gain traction and drive sustainable growth.

Shein

Here’s a more recent example of how an entrepreneur’s unique, unconventional mindset led to a multi-billion dollar e-commerce business. Starting as a small Chinese fashion exporter mainly dealing in wedding dresses and women’s clothing, founder Chris Xu wanted to explore the Western markets. So, he created a Shopify-based e-commerce platform in 2016 with minimal branding and marketing. The entire user journey was focused on keeping things simple.

A few products were imported from China with almost no overhead. Once Shein saw a positive response to its affordable, fast-fashion clothes via Facebook ads, the company optimized its supply chain. It used social content to dramatically scale its online store. Shein is now valued at over $66 billion.

Read More: MVP Development is a Smart and Prudent Approach

How Cubix Drives Project Success

To make sure your overall project journey is as smooth as possible and your MVP resonates with all stakeholders and your target audience, you need a reliable MVP development partner.

Cubix is a custom MVP software development company. We’ve guided numerous SMBs, startups, and enterprises to launch innovative MVPs with confidence – and the results have been simply incredible.

Having an agile, design-thinking mindset, every member of our MVP development team is focused on one core objective – to help your product make an impact and stand out. 

We utilize our resources and industry expertise to take your imaginative ambitions from 0 to 1.

Read More: Mobile App Scaling Post-MVP – 6 Best Tips for Startup Success

In a Nutshell

MVP development can be rewarding in terms of validating a new product idea and setting the foundation for a successful startup. However, as we’ve covered, MVPs fail if not managed carefully.

By maintaining awareness around the common red flags like scope irregularities, technical debt, lack of feedback planning, and short-sighted views constraining future vision, founders can catch issues early while still salvageable. Address problems at the first sign – don’t ignore small fires, hoping they put themselves out.

If you see your MVP failing due to some of the discussed anti-patterns, take a step back to correct them rather than stubbornly soldiering on or – worse – going dark to problems. Getting an MVP to market is less important than ensuring you squeeze maximum learning from it. Pivot if needed; rebuild parts from scratch if essential.

If you want to achieve the best project outcomes, contact Cubix’s representatives to discuss your initiatives. We may have the perfect solution and project roadmap for you. 

Read More: Guide to Planning Your Minimum Viable Product