How to build your MVP and define impact indi­ca­tors

Before you begin, decide which fea­tures your MVP real­ly needs – and which can wait:

1. Pri­or­i­tize key fea­tures for your MVP

Start by mak­ing a list of all poten­tial fea­tures. Then group and rank them using the MoSCoW method.

The MoSCoW method

The MoSCoW method is a frame­work for pri­or­i­tiz­ing what mat­ters when build­ing your MVP. It helps you eval­u­ate fea­tures and require­ments by sort­ing them into four clear cat­e­gories, based on how essen­tial they are to your product’s suc­cess:

• Must have: These are the non­nego­tiable fea­tures. With­out them, your MVP doesn’t work or fails to meet your users’ core needs.
• Should have: These fea­tures add val­ue, but they aren’t imme­di­ate­ly crit­i­cal. Include them if time and resources allow.
• Could have: Nice-to-haves. They aren’t essen­tial and can be added lat­er if time and resources allow.
• Won’t have (this time): Fea­tures you’re con­scious­ly choos­ing to leave out of the first ver­sion..

Start by focus­ing only on the “must haves.” Devel­op the MVP with those fea­tures that will have the biggest impact on whether your solu­tion suc­ceeds. For more help with pri­or­i­tiz­ing, check out the empact-effort matrix in the chap­ter “Solu­tion design for impact start-ups: A real­i­ty check for your solu­tion ideas.”

Plan your resources for build­ing the MVP

From day one, be clear about the resources you’ll need. A sol­id resource plan helps you avoid both over­al­lo­ca­tion and under­use – key to deliv­er­ing a func­tion­al, valu­able prod­uct with­out burn­ing out your team or over­stretch­ing your bud­get

1. Iden­ti­fy the resources you need

Break your project into small­er, man­age­able work pack­ages and esti­mate the effort required for each one. Then define what resources you’ll need to make it hap­pen. These might include:

2. Plan your team capac­i­ty

Assign tasks based on each team member’s avail­abil­i­ty and work­load. Build in buffer time to han­dle unex­pect­ed issues. Clear task assign­ments and ear­ly iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of bot­tle­necks will help your team work more effi­cient­ly – and pre­vent burnout or long-term absences.

3. Esti­mate your costs

Cal­cu­late your total costs by com­bin­ing per­son­nel, tech expens­es, and any out­sourced ser­vices. A detailed cost break­down helps you cre­ate a real­is­tic bud­get and man­age it effec­tive­ly. It also comes in handy when pitch­ing to investors – clear num­bers increase your chances of secur­ing fund­ing.

Define indi­ca­tors for your impact goals

Now it’s time to choose the right met­rics to mea­sure the actu­al impact of your MVP – up to lev­el 6 on the Impact Lad­der.

1. Focus on out­puts and out­comes

By mea­sur­ing your results up to lev­el 6 of the Impact Lad­der, you can start to see whether your solu­tion is cre­at­ing mean­ing­ful improve­ments in people’s lives.

Why mea­sure up to lev­el 6 ?

Exam­ple indi­ca­tors for mea­sur­ing impact up to lev­el 6 of the Impact Lad­der:

Step 1 — Activ­i­ties take place as planned

• Num­ber of workshops/​trainings/​events deliv­ered
• Per­cent­age of project activ­i­ties imple­ment­ed as planned
• Num­ber of staff/​volunteers involved
• Quan­ti­ty of mate­ri­als dis­trib­uted (e.g., fly­ers, text­books)
• Time­ly deliv­ery of project mile­stones
• Num­ber of prod­ucts devel­oped or man­u­fac­tured
• Num­ber of trees plant­ed in a refor­esta­tion project

Step 2 — Tar­get groups are reached

• Num­ber of applications/​registrations for a pro­gram
• Reach across var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels (e.g., social media fol­low­ers, newslet­ter sub­scribers)
• Num­ber of cus­tomers aware of the prod­uct
• Area of renat­u­ral­ized land (in hectares)

Step 3 — Tar­get groups accept the offer­ing

• Par­tic­i­pa­tion rates in events/​programs
• Com­ple­tion rates for courses/​programs
• Pur­chase or usage rates of your prod­ucts or ser­vices
• Par­tic­i­pant sat­is­fac­tion rates
• Repeat par­tic­i­pa­tion, pur­chas­es, or prod­uct usage
• Tree sur­vival rate after six months in refor­esta­tion efforts

Step 4 — Tar­get groups gain aware­ness or skills

• Num­ber of par­tic­i­pants who have gained new knowl­edge on a spe­cif­ic top­ic
• Shifts in atti­tudeswith­in the tar­get group
• Num­ber of par­tic­i­pants demon­strat­ing new skills after a work­shop or train­ing
• Increased moti­va­tion to change behav­ior, trig­gered by inter­nal or exter­nal incen­tives
• Increase in num­ber of oppor­tu­ni­ties for par­tic­i­pants to apply their new skills
• Num­ber of cus­tomers who can accu­rate­ly describe the product’s fea­tures after pur­chase
• Increase in bio­di­ver­si­ty in renat­u­ral­ized areas

Step 5 — Tar­get group changes behav­ior

• Num­ber of peo­ple who adopt new behav­iors as a result of par­tic­i­pa­tion, use or pur­chase (e.g., more sus­tain­able con­sump­tion habits)
• Num­ber of par­tic­i­pants active­ly involved in new ini­tia­tives or projects
• Num­ber of new col­lab­o­ra­tions or part­ner­ships formed as a result of the ini­tia­tive
• Return of endan­gered species to the ecosys­tem

Step 6 — Tar­get group’s liv­ing con­di­tions improve

• Per­cent­age of the tar­get group with improved social or eco­nom­ic con­di­tions (e.g., access to bet­ter jobs or edu­ca­tion)
• Num­ber of indi­vid­u­als whose income or finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty increased through par­tic­i­pa­tion or prod­uct use
• Improve­ments in health or well-being of the tar­get group
• High­er cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion relat­ed to the core prob­lem your solu­tion address­es
• Mea­sur­able improve­ment in air qual­i­ty (e.g., low­er lev­els of par­tic­u­late mat­ter or NO₂ in urban areas)
• Increased car­bon cap­ture from refor­est­ed areas

3. Estab­lish a base­line

Your base­line is the start­ing point for mea­sur­ing change. It helps you com­pare the sit­u­a­tion before and after your inter­ven­tion – like the num­ber of peo­ple who under­stand healthy eat­ing or have basic stress resilience skills.

When­ev­er pos­si­ble, base your base­line on offi­cial sta­tis­tics, not self-report­ed fig­ures. Rely­ing on self-assess­ment increas­es the risk of over­stat­ing your impact (also known as impact wash­ing).

4. Set up a mea­sure­ment sys­tem and data col­lec­tion plan

By defin­ing your objec­tives, indi­ca­tors, data sources and respon­si­bil­i­ties, you cre­ate a sol­id foun­da­tion for your MVP and ensure that all impor­tant aspects are tak­en into account. A sim­ple Excel spread­sheet can serve as your data col­lec­tion plan. It should include the fol­low­ing columns:

You’re now well-posi­tioned to devel­op an MVP that not only works but cre­ates real impact.

Once your MVP is ready, we rec­om­mend con­duct­ing a real­i­ty check. In the next chap­ter, you’ll learn how to col­lect reli­able data on how well your solu­tion is received, how effec­tive it is, and whether it has the poten­tial to scale.