Start with a Gravel Road: Why MVPs Beat 12‑Lane Highways

Source: Dev.to

Introduction

Building software is like traveling between destinations. In our case, it’s traveling from Problem City to New Solution. The software is the road that connects the two. Too often developers try to build a 12‑lane interstate before they even know if the road reaches the right destination.

(If you’re not familiar with roadwork: building an interstate highway can take months or even years, requires extensive planning and manpower, costs a fortune, and disrupts everyone around it while under construction.)

Start with a Gravel Road

It’s okay to build a simple one‑lane gravel road at first. Sure, it has potholes, big rocks, and you can’t go very fast on it, but it’s still faster than walking (manual work) and lets you quickly determine whether you’ll reach New Solution.

At this stage:

• It’s a one‑way road, not pretty, and slow to drive.
• Occasionally a fallen tree or a broken‑down car may block the way.
• It gets the job done quickly and for far less money than an interstate.

The great part is that you never lose the ability to improve the road. With the initial gravel road, you discover that many people are trying to get to New Solution, so you can lay a little asphalt and fill in potholes to increase speed and capacity.

Monitoring and Incremental Improvements

First Upgrade

After a couple of months you can determine whether the road is sufficient:

• If traffic isn’t backed up and everyone reaches New Solution in an acceptable time, no upgrades are needed.
• If traffic grows and congestion appears, it’s time to improve the road.

Typical first upgrades:

• Widen to two lanes so more people can travel simultaneously.
• Remove trees that are too close to the road to prevent them from falling during storms.
• Add shoulders so drivers can pull off instead of stopping in the lane.
• Continuously monitor, fix potholes, and assist broken‑down cars.

Subsequent Upgrades

After a few more months you can assess whether the upgrades are effective:

• If the road meets drivers’ needs, maintain it and consider building the next road.
• If traffic backs up again, widen the road further—perhaps to four lanes.

Additional enhancements may include:

• Integrating with other roads (systems) by adding traffic lights, road signs, or bridges.
• Increasing the speed limit.

The cycle continues: improve, confirm the improvements solve current issues, and monitor. Eventually, the road stabilizes, construction eases off, and resources can be redirected to new projects.

When to Invest in More Sophisticated Infrastructure

You don’t need super‑powerful, complex systems right out of the gate. Often you don’t need Kubernetes, expensive databases, or elaborate infrastructure services. Like the interstate example, those solutions require significant time, effort, and money.

A practical approach:

1. Start small – a few features that solve the immediate problem, running on a single server or a simple serverless setup.
2. Monitor – track usage, performance, and feedback.
3. Clean up – address technical debt and refine the existing codebase.
4. Maintain – fix bugs and handle issues as they arise.
5. Scale only when needed – when traffic overwhelms a single server, add a load balancer and multiple servers, then consider more sophisticated infrastructure.

Sometimes all you need is a gravel road to start.

Conclusion

Build software incrementally:

• Begin with the simplest viable solution.
• Continuously monitor and improve based on real usage.
• Upgrade infrastructure only when demand justifies it.

This approach saves time, money, and effort while ensuring you deliver value that users actually need.