🛠️ How much code do you need for your MVP?

Founders Factory Startup Bulletin #24

May 3, 2023

Welcome to the Founders Factory Startup Bulletin—“Created for founders, by founders”.

Each month, we bring you a round-up of startup and investment stories, key learnings from founders, and insights from the Founders Factory team.

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Abstract painting of a confused founder writing code (DALL-E 2)

When we interviewed Google Ventures’ Tom Hulme earlier this year, one valuable lesson he imparted was about ‘clock speed’.

“Clock speed—the rate at which you can deliver products, test, and iterate—is one of the most valuable notions for any startup founder. “

This is a crucial mindset when you are building your minimum viable product (MVP). While detail matters, what’s more important is creating an initial platform off of which you can test, validate, and adapt. Tuning the finer aspects of your product will come once you understand what your customer really wants.

This is a good rule of thumb when deciding what level of code you want to develop your MVP with. In this month’s newsletter, FF Product Coach Val Balace shares her checklist for founders grappling with code in the early stages of their business.

Also in this month’s Startup Bulletin:

Our top recommended reads
Highlights from our portfolio this month
Opportunities, events, new roles

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🛠️ Building an MVP: How much code do you need?

by Val Balace, FF Product Coach & serial entrepreneur

The starting point for building an MVP—and understanding what level of code you require to build it—is to outline exactly what you are trying to accomplish. With an MVP, this really boils down to validating your idea and derisking your company. Anything you build, and the level at which you are building it, should consider:

Market risk (is there a market + will it be well received?)
Execution risk (can you build the product + assemble the right team?)
Financial risk (can you prove enough to fundraise?)

Bearing this in mind, you should…

Use No/Low Code if…

You don’t know exactly what you’re building yet. This goes back to the point about validating your idea: really, at this stage, it should be about building something that can help you perform micro experiments, before committing to something larger scale
The app/website isn’t your main product. For instance, e-commerce sites or news sites, where the tech is just housing the product
You can’t afford someone to look after code. Financial constraints may mean you can’t employ a technical person who can fully look after tech

Use Some Code if…

You are clear about the scope of the product. This will include having initial interest or an initial pool of users who will use your product straight after launch
The app/website is the main product, and there’s a highly transactional journey. It may become frustrating not to have this level of control if you want to be able to change things quickly
Core of your product is unlikely to change, but features are (e.g. when a customer asks for it). As soon as you paying customers make requests, you don’t want to end up panicking and changing your whole tech stack
You can allocate someone to work on this. A full-stack developer, for instance, who you feel comfortable with leaving in their responsibility

Use More Code if…

The platform is the main product. If you’re the only company who can do this due to the uniqueness of the technology—machine learning or any advanced AI, for instance—then you will need to invest in code
Your building heavy features that handle sensitive data. Anything in health, banking, or legal requires high level data security, and will tend to require custom code.
You can hire a full-time CTO or tech lead. This person needs to have the same or aligned vision, purpose and motivations to do this and has the experience building products in your chosen industry
You have the capital to invest in servers, a lean tech team, etc.

For more information on what level of code to use, and examples of some of the best tools to use, read Val’s full article.

Read Val's article

📚 What we’ve been reading

The History of AI in 7 Experiments (The Generalist)
Startup Guide to Facebook Ads in 2023 (Founders Factory)
The Next Era of Gaming and AI (NFX)
Why investors love vertical labour marketplaces (Every)
Angel investors: An honest guide to finding & working with individual investors (Founders Factory)

🚀 News from the Founders Factory portfolio

Scan.com raised a $12m Series A round led by Oxford Capital, Aviva Ventures, YZR Capital, Triple Point Ventures and Simplyhealth Ventures. They’re building a digital booking infrastructure for diagnostic scans
Acre raised a £6.5m seed round. Spun out of our Venture Studio, Acre is building a blockchain-based mortgage solution
We announced the launch of Planet Positive Lab, a joint venture with University of Oxford’s Wadham College and Planet Fund to accelerate science-backed climate tech founders in the Oxford ecosystem
Xapien just announced a £4.5m raise, bringing total seed funding to £6m. As ‘the ChatGPT of Due Diligence’, their technology is condensing weeks of manual research into minutes
Cosmose announced a groundbreaking partnership with Near Foundation (behind the Near Protocol), creating a blockchain-enabled payment system to radically reduce transaction fees on their ecommerce platform KaiKai. The business is now valued at around $500m
Mae, a digital health platform for Black mothers (before, during, and after pregnancy), announced a partnership with Aetna Better Health, bringing their support to Medicaid recipients in the state of Maryland

Opportunities in tech

💼 Jobs

B2B Growth Lead at Founders Factory London
Venture Designer at Founders Factory Milan
Growth Co-Founder at Renbee (trusted marketplace for renewables installers)

📆 Events

London Tech Week (June 12th - 16th, London)—annual global celebration of tech, this year exploring a number of themes around sustainability and next tech frontiers. The Factory team is appearing in various panels across the week, so see you there!

See you next month 👋

Interested in reading more of the same insights? Check out the Founders Factory blog, and previous newsletters.