MVP Design Basics: A Founder’s Guide to Launching Fast in 2025

“What should be in my MVP?”

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“Do I need a designer to build an MVP?”

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“Can I use AI to design my MVP?”

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Designing an MVP can feel like a guessing game. We’ve worked with over 120 founders at Verticode and hear the same questions pop up again and again, so I’m answering the most common ones related to design, UX, IU and everything in between here.

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1. What should be included in my MVP design?

When designing your MVP (Minimum Viable Product), focus on function over flair. It should be more about usability and less about colour theory and animations.

Here’s what to include - and if you work with a specialist MVP Studio like Verticode, these steps will be taken care of for you:

🔹A single, clear user journey

Start with one primary goal for your user. This could be signing up, making a booking, or completing a transaction. Avoid trying to build every possible feature or use case.

🔹Core features only

Include the minimum features needed to support that journey. If a feature doesn’t directly help users achieve the core goal, leave it out (for now).

🔹Simple UX flows

Map out the basic screens and steps. Use tools like:

• Wireframes to sketch out page layouts
  
  
• User journey maps to visualise steps and pain points
  
  
• UI templates to speed up design
  
  

🔹Skip visual polish

Don’t worry about perfect colours, branding, or animations. Early users care more about solving a problem than how pretty your product looks.

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 2. Do I need a designer for my MVP?

Short answer: not always.

If you already have a simple, functional version of your product in mind and the goal is just to validate a concept quickly, you might be able to skip a designer, especially for an internal demo or a very early test.

But here’s what founders often don’t realise:

🔹A bad user experience can ruin early testing

If users don’t understand what to do, where to click, or how to complete the main action, your MVP won’t give you useful feedback, even if the core idea is strong.

🔹Designers help make your MVP testable

A good designer doesn’t just make things pretty. They help simplify flows, avoid friction, and shape an experience people can use without hand-holding. At Verticode, we pair this design thinking with development from day one, so you don’t have to juggle separate teams.

🔹There’s a smart middle ground

You don’t need a fully branded, pixel-perfect interface. What you do need is clear navigation, logical screens, and enough structure for users to complete the key journey. That’s often what makes the difference between a useful MVP and a confusing prototype. This is exactly the balance we strike when designing MVPs at Verticode - especially now in 2025, when user expectations are far higher than they were just a couple of years ago. This is why working with an MVP-focused design and development studio saves founders both time and rework.

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Having worked on over 120 MVPs at Verticode, we’ve seen that the founders who focus on MVP design basics from the start cut their time to market by up to 50% and get actionable feedback much faster. 

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3. Can ChatGPT help design my MVP?

Yes, but with limits.

ChatGPT can be a powerful tool in the early stages of MVP design, especially if you’re working solo or trying to move quickly. But it’s important to know where it shines and where human input is still essential.

🔹What ChatGPT can help with:

Use it as your brainstorming partner and content generator for key product planning tasks. For example:

✔ Write microcopy - clear button labels, tooltips, and error messages
✔ Suggest layout ideas - basic wireframe structures for key screens
✔ Draft onboarding flows - simple step-by-step experiences
✔ Prep a product requirements doc (PRD) - outlining features, goals, and user journeys

It’s especially useful when you're stuck or need to articulate something faster.

🔹Where it falls short:

ChatGPT won’t give you production-ready UI designs or pixel-perfect prototypes. It can suggest flows or structure, but translating those into intuitive, testable experiences still takes human judgement, and design skill.

This is where working with an MVP Studio like Verticode makes the difference - we can take what you’ve already created in ChatGPT, refine it, and turn it into a functional, user-friendly product that’s ready for real-world testing. That way, you get the speed of AI without sacrificing quality or usability.

In short: use ChatGPT to speed up your thinking, not to replace design decisions.

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4. What’s the difference between UX design and MVP design?

While UX design and MVP design often overlap, their goals are different, and understanding that difference can help you move faster with less stress.

🔹UX design is long-term

UX (user experience) design is about crafting smooth, intuitive experiences across a product’s full lifecycle. UX designers focus on:

• User research and personas
  
  
• Scalable information architecture
  
  
• Accessibility, consistency, and polish
  
  
• Future-proofing for growth
  
  

It’s a big-picture discipline that works best once your product is more established.

🔹MVP design is short-term and scrappy

MVP design is about validating assumptions quickly. It’s not about building the “best” user experience, it’s about building the smallest testable version of it.

MVP designers focus on:

• Speed over perfection
  
  
• One core user journey
  
  
• Clear CTAs and testable flows
  
  
• Simplified UI and minimal features
  
  

You're not aiming for ideal UX, just enough usability to see if people care about your idea.

🧠 Think of it this way:

UX design thinks about scale. MVP design thinks about launch. Both matter, but not at the same time.

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5. What design mistakes kill MVPs?

Designing an MVP isn’t about making something beautiful, it’s about making something useful fast. But many early-stage founders fall into common traps that can slow them down or lead to wasted dev time.

Here are the top MVP design mistakes we see (and how to avoid them):

❌ 1. Over-designing too early

Polished, hi-fidelity designs might look impressive, but they can trap you in unnecessary detail before you’ve even tested your core idea. Instead, start with wireframes and basic UI patterns. Focus on clarity, not visual flair. This is why we’ll ensure that designs are simple and effective when building MVPs at Verticode - avoiding wasting time on features or visuals that won’t make it past MVP stage.

❌ 2. Skipping user flows

Jumping into screens before mapping the user journey is a shortcut to confusion. Even a simple MVP needs a clear flow:

• What does a user do first?
  
  
• What happens after that?
  
  
• How do they reach the value?
  

Design flows before designing screens. At Verticode, this is a core part of how we scope an MVP - it ensures that every click leads somewhere intentional, and that early testers can experience the product’s value without guesswork.

❌ 3. Ignoring mobile

Many founders start designing for desktop out of habit, but most people will test your MVP on their phone. If the experience breaks on smaller screens, you lose trust immediately.

Even if you’re building a Progressive Web App (PWA), which I always recommend, it still needs to be designed with mobile in mind from day one. That could mean mobile-first or at least designing mobile and desktop in parallel.

When you get your first version back from the studio building your MVP, mobile flows and UI should be a core part of testing. It’s often the difference between a product people try once and one they’re willing to come back to.

❌ 4. Designing for every possible use case

Trying to please everyone means your product pleases no one. A strong MVP solves one core problem for one specific user. Resist the urge to add “just one more feature” or handle every edge case.

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Final thoughts: MVP design isn’t about perfection. It’s about purpose

Designing your MVP is less about how it looks and more about how it works. It should guide users through a single, valuable journey, helping you test your assumptions quickly and clearly.

Whether you're going DIY with no-code tools, getting help from ChatGPT, or working with a MVP development studio like Verticode, remember:

✔ Design only what you need for Day 1
✔ Focus on clarity and usability over polish
✔ Think about flows and feedback, not just features

Do you need help designing an MVP that actually gets used?

At Verticode, we build high-quality, fast MVPs with design baked in. That’s why we have 4.8/5 star user rating on Trustpilot and have helped launch over 120 MVPs to date.

Let’s chat about your idea.