How to develop a successful software product? One of the inevitable steps of the process is building a functional MVP and choosing the right technology is halfway to success. What is MVP, how to prepare it and why is it worth considering choosing Elixir programming language? Follow the article to find out our top recommendations for Elixir MVP applications development
What is an MVP?
Even the most promising business ideas are worthless if not confronted with the audience’s needs and expectations. If you wish to attract potential stakeholders, it’s a must to prove to them that your mobile app is functional enough to impress end-users and preparing an MVP is the best way to do it.
An MVP, meaning Minimum Viable Product, is a beta version product equipped with minimum core functionalities. Although its design is usually not yet very detailed and advanced, it is able to perform its basic operations well enough to get tested.
Launching an MVP provides startup owners with a number of benefits. It allows them to:
collect feedback from early adopters
validate the idea on a minimum budget
select features are valuable for end-users
choose the right direction of further development
present the idea to stakeholders and investors
minimize the risk of developing the product with no potential
maximize return on investment.
Features of a good MVP
So how to develop a functional MVP that will help you to achieve all the above-mentioned technical and business goals? Let’s have a look at a few industry best practices.
- Equip an MVP only with core functionalities. An excess of available functions may result in blurring the main concept and makes it difficult to verify whether the product development process is heading in the desired direction.
- Treat an MVP as a prototype, not as a final product. The best way to minimize the risk in the validation process is to start with small steps. Before promoting the product in order to reach a wider audience, present it to smaller groups of early adopters and improve it according to their feedback.
- Start with careful analysis. Before you even start a mobile app development process, find the answers to these questions: what kind of functionalities are expected? What is the potential direction of further improvements? How will the application deal with processing big amounts of data? It will help you select the most adequate technologies.
- Consider the long-term perspective. Obviously, the technologies used to build an MVP can also be applied in the final solution. Neglecting the scenario of what will happen once the app starts to grow, might be a severe and costly mistake. Planning in a long-term perspective will help you secure the future needs of your mobile app and avoid re-writing the solution into a different technology shortly after the launch.
- Develop an MVP on a minimum budget. Remember that an MVP, although is already a functional solution, is still a part of a testing phase. Although the idea might seem promising, there is still a risk of failure. Keeping MVP development cost-effective will help you save resources in order to use them on the final idea.
- Be fast. Despite the need for careful analysis, an MVP should be still developed quite fast in order to be effective and cost-effective. The sooner you start collecting feedback from the market, the lower overall development cost and higher ROI will be.
- Don’t overthink the graphic design. Obviously, in order to verify an end-user interest, the interface should be appealing and provide easy navigation even at the early stage of the product development process. However, we don’t recommend paying too much attention to the details at the stage of an MVP, we, instead, advise saving the resources for improving the core functionalities and investing in the evaluation process.
Elixir MVP applications
There are a number of available technologies that you can choose for MVP development. Of course, they should be selected according to the project idea, desired functionalities and life-cycle of your future mobile app. As Elixir fans and experts, we’re going to highlight a few benefits of this excellent programming language that has already been chosen by market giants such as WhatsApp, Pinterest, Discord or Slack.
Elixir, the popular low-latency and high-concurrency programming language was first introduced in 2011 by Ruby developer José Valim, a member of Rails Core Team. The language was built on top of the BEAM, Erlang's Virtual Machine. The reason for this approach was that José Valim wanted Elixir to be a concurrent and productive coding language like Erlang.
Since its release, there has been a growing demand for Elixir developers. The language can be used to develop websites that have high traffic loads and applications that are highly scalable, such as messaging apps and networking sites. It is also highly fault-tolerant as a simple bug in the system will not crash your system. Whereas using other programming languages, a single bug could crash the entire system.
To ensure continuous function of apps, a platform needs to be stable, concurrent, fault-tolerant, and should support software updates on the go (hot code upgrade). Elixir was the answer and resulted in many notable companies making use of Elixir within their tech stacks: Discord, PepsiCo, Pinterest, Slack, The Financial Times and Toyota Connected, Whatsapp.
So why should you consider developing Elixir MVP applications?
1. Elixir is concurrent. This feature makes it a great choice for all mobile applications that are intended to grow. If user interactions are an important element of your future mobile app, the software has to be prepared for handling big traffic. Elixir MVP applications can provide the desired scalability and are able to process a big amount of data without loss of performance. Obviously, the technology used for an MVP can also be selected for the final solution, so Elixir is a great way to secure your future needs.
2. Elixir is easy to learn. This language can be quickly picked up even by someone with only basic programming skills. This is particularly important for startups that usually can’t afford to hire highly qualified, niche programming language specialists.
3. Elixir provides great resources and an engaged community. Although it’s still quite a young programming language, it has already managed to gather a big community of Elixir enthusiasts active in sharing their best practices and developing new tools. This technology is also supported by a number of ready-to-use libraries and frameworks such as Phoenix, Ecto, or Ex Unit that make the Elixir development process faster and more enjoyable.
If you wish to have a look at some examples in order to learn more about Elixir MVP applications, feel free to check out our case study of Bamboo, a stock exchange app designed for the African investment market. The app required integrating a number of external providers for varied features and varied markets. Thanks to Elixir, we could create a solution able to handle operating in a dynamically growing environment and provide our client with a fully developed mobile app with a functional interface.
For further information about the benefits of Elixir MVP applications and Elixir development, feel free to check out our articles: Why choose Elixir for the development of your products? or How your business can benefit from using Elixir and Phoenix?.
The Summary
If you’re searching for the right technology that is able to handle big traffic and provide desired concurrency and scalability, there’s no better choice than the Elixir programming language. As one of the most loved languages, it successfully supports a number of world-renowned startups and market giants.
If you’re searching for a trustworthy partner experienced in Elixir development, you’re in the right place. With a proven record of successful Elixir MVP applications, we are able to provide you with accurate advice and a smooth, established development process. Feel free to contact us - we will be happy to share more insights and information.
