Many businesses aim to launch their products faster, and deal with outcomes later. Hence, they first launch an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and delay the final product launch in favor of time-to-market. Speed is associated with progress, ambition, and competitiveness. However, while fast launch can be useful, it is frequently mistaken for fast development, and this belief can become a serious obstacle to sustainable growth.
MVP vs Production Solution
An MVP is designed primarily as a learning tool. Its goal is to validate assumptions: whether users need the product, which problem matters most, and whether the proposed solution delivers value. MVP decisions are driven by speed and cost efficiency. Teams deliberately simplify architecture, limit functionality, and sometimes rely on manual processes behind the scenes. These compromises are acceptable because the MVP is not meant to scale or live long, it is meant to launch a quick trial version.
A production solution, by contrast, is built for real usage over time. It assumes growth, changing requirements, and ongoing maintenance. Production solution is expected to work in a long-term, be resilient to failures, and easy to modify, developers prioritize stability, scalability, security, and maintainability. Unlike the MVP, production solutions are final products, not trial versions.
Risks of “Fast Launch”
Despite launching an MVP first is beneficial, it’s better to consider the different circumstances and risks of it. Fast launch is not inherently wrong, it’s effective when you have a plan for transitioning from MVP to production. Launching an MVP just in order to be faster has its own repercussions:
- Slowdown of the process
When teams rush to launch fast, they often make shortcuts in architecture, testing, documentation and scalability. At first, these shortcuts seem harmless because the product “works” and users can see some value. But as usage grows, these decisions accumulate technical debt and every future change becomes harder, riskier, and more expensive. Teams spend more time fixing
fragile parts than building new value ones. This slows development instead of accelerating it.
- Poor user experience
Developers mostly prioritize speed over user experience (UX). If an MVP has confusing UX, unstable workflow, or missing core expectations, users may form a negative first impression.
- Costly rework
After building an MVP in a rush, it mostly requires fixes and needs to be rebuilt. Decisions like hardcoded logic, quick fixes, or using unsuitable tools may have been acceptable in the short term, but are costly to undo. In many cases, teams find themselves rewriting major parts of the product instead of iterating on it smoothly, which it not only time-consuming, but also expensive.
Acceptable shortcuts in an MVP
- Focus on the core functions
Prioritizing core features helps the team learn whether the product idea is viable before spending time on extras. For example, if your products purpose is to make an appointment with a doctor, it should concentrate it, not payment, profiles, or ratings.
- Basic UX
Beautiful design is not the crucial part of the MVP, it can be simple, yet still functional and user-friendly.
- Simplified implementation
At the MVP stage, manual processes instead of fully flexible systems are acceptable.
Conclusion
Fast launching can uncover early insights and validate ideas, but when initial shortcuts become permanent, they create technical debt that slows development, triggers bugs, and eats time. Real growth needs a stable foundation, so speed should be a temporary decision, not a long-term replacement.
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