Why you should build your MVP in WordPress

WordPress is and has always been known for being a powerful content management system. It allows you to design and develop websites for different purposes. You could develop for example a portfolio website for a photographer, an e-commerce website selling sneakers or a website for your B2B service. But what people tend to forget is that with the right tools, skills and knowledge you can also build a MVP (=minimum viable product) for a SAAS-platform, webapp or even mobile app. 

In this blog we’re discussing the possibilities of building an MVP in WordPress, give you specific examples and give you even our secret tools that you could use for building your MVP. 

What is an MVP?

MVP is short for ‘Minimum Viable Product’. Before spending tons of money and time on building a piece of software or a digital product, it would be wise to test your idea first in your desired market. What if you do spend a lot of money and invest months of your time launching your idea, without testing it among your target audience? Well, it’s almost the same if you’re going to the casino, run to the roulette table and put all of your savings on one number. Pretty sure that your spouse wouldn’t be too happy about that. 

A minimum viable product lets you test out your idea and gather more information from your target market and audience. It could give you more information about whether people would use it, if so would they also pay for it? Or do they miss specific functionalities that make it even more interesting for them to use. 

Don’t worry: you don’t have to spend months testing it. Just make sure that you find a small group of people that are part of your target audience and would want to test the product. Whenever you feel that you gathered enough information and are confident enough about the fundamentals of the product you could invest time and money in developing the actual version 1.0. 

Why build an MVP in WordPress?

Quite simple: most of the functionalities that you probably have in mind can be developed using WordPress. Okay, maybe it would get too complicated if you have an idea for a web application that uses a lot of AI or very complex machine learning stuff. 

But in general using WordPress can shorten your lead time for developing an MVP within weeks or months. From our own experience we were able to develop a fully digital product (version 1.0) in a matter of 4 weeks. And to be honest, it could have gone even quicker if we weren’t also busy with other projects of our partner agencies. 

So, the biggest reason for building an MVP in WordPress is basically time. And time equals money. The time and money that you will have extra on hand, could be used to investigate the market and target audience further. Also, the money that you save could be used down the road for executing an effective marketing campaign. 

What possibilities do you have? 

It is recommended that you use your MVP only to showcase the most fundamental functionalities. The beautiful thing about doing this with WordPress, is that you could make it functional. This way, your users could actually test your product. Below you will find a list of possible features that you could include: 

Registration / login functionality

Give your users the ability to register themselves for your MVP. Within WordPress you can also make sure that they will receive a confirmation email when they have set up their account successfully. Obviously, they will also be able to login to their account and do whatever they need to do on your platform. 

User dashboard functionality

After logging in they will be able to access their user dashboard. Add a profile picture, give them the opportunity to make it personal by letting them include a bio about themselves and filling in all the necessary information there is needed. 

Automation

With the use of third-party software it would be possible to automate some things on your website. This can be used for marketing purposes, but also for automation purposes on your platform. For example: you want that when a user registers on your website, the data is being automatically sent and stored in a Mailchimp mailing list.  

Dynamic & user-generated content

Let users create their own content which is being stored automatically in the database. The content and data could be fetched and placed anywhere you’d like in your platform. Another example that we actually used ourselves: we’ve been working on a platform called Brainmap where individuals can store their ideas, content and milestones quickly and easily. 

One of the functionalities we’ve added in here is the ability to add whatever you’re thankful about in that moment. It is simply an one field form that is being stored in the users’ account. In this way we can have an easy to use journaling tool on this platform. 

Payment processing 

The beautiful thing about using an MVP with WordPress is that you’re able to monetize it from the get-go. Whether you’re trying to sell subscriptions or have another business model, you can easily include payment processing into your MVP. 

Just to clarify: we don’t recommend doing it immediately. Let people test the product first, when you notice that the product is being used and people find it valuable you could go and try to monetize your product. 

Specific MVP x WordPress examples

Still not fully convinced that you could develop your MVP on WordPress? Let us give you some specific examples:

1. Community-based (web)app
2. HR-recruitment tool
3. Platforms based on matching supply and demand

Building a community-based (web)app

Looking to grow your audience, brand-awareness and in the meantime be in direct contact with your target audience? Develop a community-based (web)app that helps your target audience discuss topics around the niche you’re active in. Of course, you could go and use other platforms like Slack or Discord – but building your own for your specific niche, gives you the opportunity to strengthen your brand. 

Functionalities that will be included in your MVP:

• Registration and login functionality
• User dashboard with freedom to share specific information about themselves
• Messaging system

HR-recruitment tool

Are you a recruitment agency and want to work more efficiently and effectively with your candidates and companies you’re recruiting for? Build your own HR-recruitment tool that strengthens your added value towards the client. The best thing about it is that you can automate the hiring process for your clients as well. 

Functionalities that will be included in your MVP:

• Registration and login functionality for candidates and companies
• User dashboard for both candidates and companies where they can add all the necessary information
• Filter functionality for the company that is looking for a candidate: let them search for candidates based on their location, skills and experience. 
• Automated hiring process: let the company buy credits before being able to get in touch with the candidate and have the full process automated. 

Matching supply and demand

Entrepreneurship is simply making sure that you give people what they are looking for. They’re loads of platforms that are focused towards matching supply and demand. But maybe you’re active in a niche where this isn’t being done efficiently and effectively. Solve this for your target group by creating a platform that brings supply and demand together. 

Functionalities that will be included in your MVP:

• Registration and login functionality
• User dashboard
• Dynamic & User-generated content. 
• Filter functionality
• Payment processing 

This is how you do it 

You don’t have to code everything yourself anymore. These days it is easier than ever to go for low-code or even no-code solutions. In the past if you wanted to build an MVP you would easily pay thousands of dollars for it. With the rise of user-friendly low-code / no-code tools it became possible to build an MVP for as little as $2000. And this is how you do it..

First of all you’ll obviously need a WordPress environment setup on a hosting environment. After you’ve set this up, you’ll need a couple tools that will make your life easier. We will separate the tools in 3 different parts: Front-end, Back-end & Payment. 

Front-end 

Get a quick turnaround time for designing appealing and eye-catching web designs. Simply use a tool like Elementor Pro. This is a WordPress-oriented page builder that lets you develop pages in a matter of hours instead of days. We decided to work mainly with Elementor because of the following reasons: 

• Easy to use 
• Flexibility in creating your own designs 
• Able to fetch dynamic data from posts and custom post types 
• Easy to extend with add-ons 
• Still able to make more complex modifications with little code

Back-end

Develop more complex MVP’s by enriching Elementor with the plugin suite of Crocoblock. They do have front-end tools as well for increasing the possibilities for designing your page, but they also offer JetEngine. This is a tool that lets you create custom post types, custom fields and listings in a matter of minutes. It also offers a functionality where you can implement forms, the form fields can be connected to the meta fields in the backend. Great for creating functionalities like a registration/login form and have external users generate content for you. Use JetEngine for the following: 

• Simplifying complex backend stuff, without the need of a developer
• Create a profile dashboard for your users 
• Have a dynamic website and use dynamic visibility for different elements on your website 

Payment processing

Like stated before, it is easy to monetize your MVP from the start by accepting payments for users. Here, in the Netherlands, Mollie has been widely used as a payment provider. They offer a wide range of payment gateways like Ideal or accepting payments with a credit card. Another good option would be using Stripe as a payment providers

Conclusion

We can conclude that building an MVP with WordPress can be a very smart and cost-effective choice for testing your idea in your target market. With WordPress, you can build a functional MVP within a short lead time, and monetize it later when the product gains traction among your target audience. WordPress offers various functionalities such as registration/login, user dashboard, automation, dynamic/user-generated content, and payment processing that you can include in your MVP. With the right tools, skills and knowledge, you can use WordPress to bring your MVP to life and gather valuable information from your target market.