MVP Development
Build an MVP in a weekend!
This page was last updated on: 17th February 2025
Make sure you’ve completed Company Setup and Idea Validation before starting MVP development.
Prepare Your Core Idea
Before creating your codebase, make sure you have:
- The name of your application
- A clear one-liner describing what your app does
- Your core idea refined and ready to implement
This information should be readily available from your Idea Validation work.
Create a new Codebase
Spin up a new project quickly with Titan
Requirements & Documentation
Before writing any custom code, create all the documentation you need to make development buttery smooth:
Have a high level conversations with Cursor in Composer ‘agent’ mode to generate the following:
- Product Requirements Doc (PRD)
- Technical Design Doc
- Initial Database Schema
- Landing Page Copy
- Most common App User flows
- System Architecture Diagram
- UI/UX Design
For best results, use DeepSeek R1 or o3-mini.
Example prompt:
- Logo Style Recommendations: Provide guidance on what style of logo would suit your product (minimal, illustrated, text-based, abstract, etc.) based on your industry and target audience.
- Color Palette Suggestions: Basic color palette options that complement your brand identity.
Add these docs to a ‘docs’ folder at the root of the codebase.
You can now customise your landing page with these assets.
Refer to the Rapid UI Prototyping Guide for detailed instructions on styling your landing page.
Be sure to tag the ‘docs’ folder when prompting with Composer, so that Cursor has as much context as possible.
Once you’re done, you can get initial feedback by:
- Posting your landing page in the Discord #roast-my-site channel (or the Telegram group) to get feedback from the community.
- Use LandingAnalyze for free detailed analysis of:
- Copy effectiveness
- Design elements
- Conversion optimization
Having a waitlist is optional.
Legal Pages
Every product needs legal documentation to protect both you and your users. Instead of expensive legal consultations for your MVP, use AI to generate these essential pages:
- Privacy Policy
- Details how you collect, use, and protect user data
- Required for GDPR, CCPA, and most app stores
- Terms of Service
- Outlines rules for using your product
- Protects you from liability and misuse
- Booking Terms (if applicable)
- Specific terms for appointment/booking services
- Cancellation policies and scheduling rules
- Refund Policy
- Clear guidelines on when refunds are offered
- Process for requesting refunds
Generate Legal Pages with AI
Use this prompt with Cursor agent mode to generate all required legal pages for your MVP and save them to your documentation folder:
While AI-generated legal documents are sufficient for most MVPs, consider professional legal review before scaling to thousands of users or handling sensitive data. These documents should be added to your landing page footer and linked during user signup.
Build MVP
It’s time to bring everything together into a working MVP.
- If you’re happy with the database schema, ask Cursor to update your Prisma schema with a prompt like:
Then run the database migration (see Database).
- Design the main app (private dashboard behind a login).
Follow our Recommended Workflow to rapidly build a prototype.
- Build the core features incrementally with AI
See Prompt Engineering for effective prompts for building features, fixing bugs and refactoring code.
Repeat until MVP feature set is complete (Remember to create a new Composer chat for each feature).
For complex architectural decisions or planning, use DeepSeek - it’s free and powerful for high-level planning.
Beta Testing
Once the core MVP is done, spread the word (more marketing) to get some initial feedback.
Aggressively fix bugs and improve the product based on the feedback (UserJot).
Record product demos with Cursorful
If people see that you squash bugs at lightning speed and deliver features so fast they can’t keep up, they’re drastically more likely to pay for your product and not churn.
Thankfully, Cursor can help you do this.
Set Your Pricing Strategy
Initially your product may be free, so you can skip this step if you’re not charging for it.
If, however, you want to charge for premium features, you need to set your pricing strategy, and verify that payments are working.
Also, consider these key pricing factors:
Design Principles
- Keep design simple to focus on pricing and benefits
- Use a value-focused headline for clarity
- Place CTA buttons close to pricing
- List essential features only, avoiding clutter
- Add social proof (logos, testimonials) below pricing
- Highlight annual subscription discounts (20-30% savings)
- Implement social proof popups using SalesPopup to show recent transactions
Plan Structure - The simpler the better
-
Free Tier
- Start with a simple free plan to attract users
- Include basic but valuable features
- Use as lead generation for premium plans
-
Pro Plan
- Position as recommended option with visual cues
- Price competitively ($29-99/month range)
- Target growing teams/businesses, for example
- Include most-requested features
-
Enterprise Plan (if applicable)
- Custom solutions and premium support
- Use “Contact Sales” CTA
- Focus on scalability features
Product Type Considerations
-
Transformation Products
- Focus on one-time payments
- Example: Fitness apps, course platforms
- Emphasize testimonials and results
-
Utility Products
- Focus on subscription models
- Example: Budget trackers, productivity tools
- Highlight integrations and features
Currency & Pricing Psychology
- Align currencies with target demographics
- Use psychological pricing (e.g., 30)
- Configure Stripe for local currency handling
- Implement SalesNip for AI-powered price negotiations
- Test different price points with early users
Monitor conversion rates and gather user feedback to optimize your pricing strategy. Keep pricing simple at launch - you can always adjust based on market response.
Payment Models
Choose your payment model based on the type of value you deliver:
-
Recurring Subscriptions
- Use when you provide ongoing value
- Examples:
- SaaS tools used regularly
- Monitoring services
- Continuous access platforms
- Benefits:
- Predictable revenue
- Higher customer lifetime value
- Easier to scale
-
One-Time Payments
- Use when value is delivered once
- Examples:
- Digital downloads
- One-off transformations
- Limited-time access
- Benefits:
- Simpler to manage
- No recurring obligations
- Clear value proposition
-
Hybrid Models
- Combine both payment types
- Examples:
- Course platform with setup fee + monthly access
- Software with one-time purchase + optional subscription support
- Benefits:
- Maximizes revenue opportunities
- Caters to different user preferences
- Provides flexibility in pricing strategy
Choose recurring subscriptions only when you can consistently deliver ongoing value. Forcing subscriptions when value is one-time will lead to high churn rates.
Official Launch & Decision Point
After 2-3 weeks of beta testing, you can continue to work on it or keep it on the backburner.
You have 2 options based on any ‘success’ so far:
Kill Criteria (Fast Fail)
- Almost no users (paying or free)
- Flat/declining signups
- High churn → Document learnings and move to next idea
Scale Criteria (Keep Building)
If you have 20+ active users OR $100+ MRR:
-
Product Development
- Focus on features users want (UserJot)
- Rapid bug fixes
- Weekly releases
-
Growth
- Advertise for a technical co-founder via the #technical-hiring channel
- Advertise for a marketing co-founder via the #marketing-hiring channel
- Continue to work on the product, iterate fast, and market aggressively