Hello 👋🏻My name is Evgeny, and I’m a systems analyst at Purrweb, a design and development studio specializing in MVPs for startups. For an investor, any project is a brief presentation consisting of seven slides. But behind each of these slides lies significant work by the founder. To prove your product’s potential and secure funding, you’ll need to work hard.
In this article, I’ve compiled seven MVP criteria that will help you win investor’s attention and secure funding. We’ll cover analytics, product features, and psychological hooks.
1️⃣ Analyze your audience
After Tinder left the Russian market, a new dating app called Twinby made waves. It was founded by HSE student Veronika Yakovleva and a colleague from U-Robot. Launched in June 2023, the app attracted 150 million rubles by November, and its potential was valued at 5 billion rubles.
In an interview with Forbes, Veronika admitted she spent two years analyzing her target audience and testing hypotheses. The results speak for themselves. “That’s why, before starting development, I always stress the importance of understanding who the product is for and why it’s needed.”
To validate a startup idea, you need to conduct research 👇🏻
✔️ Customer Development (CustDev). These are qualitative studies that involve face-to-face meetings with potential users. In-depth interviews help you better understand your target audience and identify their pain points. For example, if you’re creating an app for stay-at-home moms, CustDev can reveal their main concerns, like lack of sleep, child health, and their own mental well-being.
✔️ Surveys. These are quantitative studies that help you gather statistics about your audience. For instance, you might find that lack of sleep and child health concerns are prevalent not just among a few individuals, but among a significant portion of your sample.
It’s best to save and visualize your audience research results, perhaps in the form of infographics. This will be the first slide of your presentation, helping you justify your product choice and prove that the market is promising.
⭐ Purrweb case. A client approached us with the idea of creating a taxi aggregator to allow users to plan trips with familiar drivers, targeting long-distance routes, like trips within New York or to the suburbs, such as to the airport.
The client had two main hypotheses:
- People value safety and prefer to travel long distances with the same driver.
- People will book a trip days in advance to ensure a comfortable ride.
We spoke with the future service’s target audience and helped the client gain confidence in their product. Here’s how we visualized the results 👇🏻
During CustDev, we gathered insights from passengers. We learned which aggregators they use and what they like and dislike about taxi rides.
We then validated these insights through quantitative analysis. It turned out that about 39% of respondents make long trips weekly.
We identified the main issues faced by respondents: drivers talking on the phone, long waits for cars, poor vehicle conditions, and rule-breaking by drivers.
About 62% of respondents were willing to plan trips in advance to ride with the same drivers. Some were even willing to pay a little extra for this service.
To support your project’s analytics and make a good impression on investors, I recommend bringing along a stack of research results from reputable organizations. Here’s where you can find it 👇🏻
✔️ Gartner agency trends. This is an analytical company that studies the IT market. For example, Gartner has forecasted a wild AI boom for 2024–2026:
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- robotic clients;
- composite AI, working like a human brain;
- neural networks that manage risks as well as PR specialists;
- and other incredible trends.
✔️ Annual reports from major corporations. Suppose you want to create an app for dental therapists in the UK to get more online orders. To verify that the idea is relevant, check out the annual reports from LinkedIn. You’ll need data over a significant period like 2015 and 2023. If the latest report shows more job openings for physical therapists, it indicates a growing demand. Consequently, your startup will likely follow the same trend.
⭐ Purrweb case. In many Western countries, organizations are required to track and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This can be done directly or by funding eco-projects. In 2022, a client approached us to create an app called Carbon Accounting, a digital environmental consultant for businesses.
The idea was that companies would use the app to calculate their CO₂ emissions and receive a report outlining the cost of offsetting their carbon footprint.
We integrated a calculator for greenhouse gas emissions according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. The data is compiled into tables that can be saved as a PDF report. Companies can also share a link to a public page that visualizes the goals and achievements from the app. The product turned out to be not just promising, but a must-have for Europe. And with our MVP, the client managed to attract investment.
Scroll to see the Carbon Accounting flow 👇🏻
The app accounts for all types of greenhouse gas emissions: direct emissions from fuel combustion and indirect emissions from using non-eco-friendly materials in production.
Emission volumes are calculated based on the emission factor for each country.
We visualized companies’ carbon footprints through tables, charts, and lists.
2️⃣ Create a backlog
A backlog is a list of tasks for further product scaling. Everything we planned at the start of the project and during development goes there. For an investor, this section proves that you have serious intentions for growth, as a backlog is often created for many years ahead, sometimes even 5 or 10 years. Of course, at the start, it usually resembles a founder’s wishful thinking, but a backlog still demonstrates your logical thinking and vision for the future.
Each item in the backlog should fit harmoniously into the overall product concept. The highest skill level is when each feature is supported by user feedback. It’s unnecessary to document every design change in the backlog; what’s important is to outline the general product development plan. But here’s the catch: you must include a note saying, “EVERYTHING CAN CHANGE.” A backlog is not a constant; it’s a flexible structure that adapts to the target audience and the product’s business goals.
⭐ Purrweb case. Not too long ago, we developed an app for a private university. The project needed investment. Together with the client, we created a solid backlog: fully detailing the structure of the student learning process and devising solutions to ease the perpetual documentation problems for management and faculty.
According to the backlog, the app will feature AI to handle schedules and reports. Teachers won’t have to spend their evenings on yet another layer of work instead of enjoying their well-deserved rest. Attendance can be marked using individual QR codes without wasting class time.
The result was a well-functioning EdTech MVP that attracted investors.
It’s important to understand that you won’t be able to implement all of the features from the backlog at once. This is a phased process that sometimes takes years of upgrades and development.
3️⃣ Calculate unit economics
Unit economics is a framework that helps compare the profit from a customer (our client who brings in money) to the cost of acquiring them. For both the investor and the founder, the key is that the first number should be larger than the second, as only in this case will the project be profitable and eventually pay off.
Unit economics is usually calculated for one month, but if you’re seeking funding, it’s better to estimate sums for an entire year. To support your calculations, look for statistics on market growth in your sector. For example, if profits increase by 10% in 2023 and 2024, your startup should grow by 10% over the same period as well.
If customers don’t generate profits in the foreseeable future, the investor will raise a red flag. Or, quite calmly, they might not give you any money and instead invest in their leisure 🍷
4️⃣ Gather user feedback
No one can tell you better how to develop your product than your users. An app will only pay off if needed and convenient for its audience. For an investor, this point is yet another guarantee of the startup’s potential: if people are interested, the project has a good chance of being profitable. That’s why we collect feedback before and after releasing the MVP.
To get early feedback, you’ll need a product manager and a minimal support team. Sometimes, the latter is called a customer care department — in the long run, that team that collects user experience and advises the founder on improving specific features and the product as a whole. Initially, it can be just one person.
There are two categories of feedback: active and passive. In the first case, users write to you themselves: they send angry reviews, rate you one star on the App Store and Google Play, or complain on X (formerly Twitter) or forums.
To collect active feedback, you can:
✔️ Create a chatbot where people can share what they like or dislike about the app.
✔️ Attach a feedback form directly in the app so users don’t have to switch to other channels.
Here’s what the support service with a chatbot may look like.
In the case of passive feedback, no one writes to us directly. We create a situation where we can track user behavior and draw conclusions about the product.
To collect passive feedback, try analyzing behavioral metrics. Suppose you introduced a new feature and gathered statistics for several months. If the indicators are close to zero, users don’t need that feature. You can remove it without any issues and avoid wasting developers’ resources on its maintenance.
You can gather user feedback after the MVP release or during the product preview phase. I recommend doing the latter for potential users before launching on the App Store and Google Play, so you can fine-tune unsuccessful solutions and outline new growth points in the backlog. If there is no MVP yet, your reliable assistant is the audience research, which I mentioned in the first point.
5️⃣ Try to hook users with features
I always suggest startups use a small life hack: implement one or more features with a promising technical solution — for example, ChatGPT. Artificial intelligence is added to projects because it simplifies many tasks for the user. As a result, the product becomes in demand because it’s easier to use, and it includes a technical solution that everyone is talking about.
⭐ Purrweb case. A client approached us with the idea of simplifying life for large businesses by creating an app that helps fill out annual financial reports. Usually, this is a long and tedious process that takes employees more than one working day to complete.
We helped develop an automated platform with templates and tips for filling out reports. To achieve this, we agreed with the client to integrate ChatGPT in version 4.0.
In the report window, there is a chat where you can send any request. For example: “Write information for this section. Here’s our company’s data that needs to be included.” The neural network will analyze the request and generate the text. The specialist only needs to edit it and paste it into the field.
To help ChatGPT understand the client better, we implemented a feature from Purrweb. Each request is accompanied by a small information note. For example: “Remember that George from Company X is writing to you. The response is needed for the first section of the report.”
6️⃣ Assemble your team and introduce it to the investor
I often notice that the personality of the founder and the team working on the product are essential to investors. This is logical: a person about to invest money in your project wants to work with professionals and seeks reliable partners.
To introduce the team to the investor, compile a portfolio for each person. Talk about their experience and highlight their role in your company. All of this should be presented on a separate slide in your presentation, along with your beautiful faces.
Why is this important? The answer is simple: assembling a team of professionals for in-house development is long and very difficult. If you’ve managed to do this, the investor understands you are ready for the long haul and a reliable business partner.
If you’re a startup founder but don’t have your own team yet, show the investor that you’re creating the product in collaboration with a contractor, such as an agency. In this case, you should also introduce the team members: “Here are my guys, they work at a great agency, I trust them, and together (with you, investor) we will definitely conquer the market.”
The main thing is to remember to smile and have happy faces.
7️⃣ Act like a founder
To attract investments, it’s not enough to come up with an idea, even if you devote all your thoughts and energy to it. You need to be an active startup founder: constantly monitor the market, meet people, and — a shock for introverts — engage in a lot of social activities.
Here are some recommendations:
1. Go to an investment fund and become their resident. Yes, you’ll have to go through hell: fill out a form, explain how your business is connected to innovative technologies, and impress the expert committee, but you’ll be valued for it.
As a fund resident, you’ll have tax and visa benefits, access to foreign markets, offices for your team, and even the possibility of getting grants. But most importantly, people will talk to you differently with a badge. This is high-level networking.
2. Participate in business accelerators. These are organizations that help entrepreneurs: they provide training, invite you to join a community, offer business consultants, and sometimes even invest in your project.
Membership in business accelerators is often free, but sometimes they ask for something in return — for example, a share in the business or options to purchase shares.
3. Attend business conferences. Present your product at industry forums, which are often organized by the same accelerators. It’s important to be well-prepared: be able to present your project and demonstrate its investment potential using unit economics.
Summary: what to do to get an investor to fund you
🟪 Approach the investor with an MVP, accompanied by:
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- a backlog,
- user feedback,
- competitive features.
🟪 Back up your project with research: your own, from market leaders, or analytics giants in the IT industry.
🟪 Don’t skip calculating the unit economics. Make sure it becomes positive shortly.
🟪 Assemble a dream team and remember the rule: everyone should have a portfolio, and everyone should get what they need.
🟪 Visit an investment fund, become a resident, and participate in business accelerator conferences.
