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Iterna

MVP and SaaS development for founders in Malaysia

An MVP is the smallest version of your product that properly solves the problem for real users. We help founders in Malaysia take an idea from “I know what’s wrong and I think software could fix it” to a working product people can actually pay for — without needing a technical co-founder first.

Tell us your problem

You might need this if

  • You have a clear idea but no idea what it costs or how long it takes
  • Different developers have quoted you wildly different numbers
  • You’re not sure which features belong in version one
  • You need something real enough to show customers or investors
  • You’ve been told to “just find a technical co-founder” and that hasn’t happened

What a first version usually includes

Every product is different, but the parts that decide whether a first version is useful are usually the same.

  • Product definition and scope
  • The core workflow, done properly
  • Sign-up and accounts
  • Payments, where the product charges from day one
  • An admin view so you can run it
  • Enough reporting to tell whether it’s working

Deciding what waits until version two

The hardest part of a first version is not building it. It is agreeing what is not in it.

We work through your idea feature by feature and sort it into what the product cannot work without, what would be nice once people are using it, and what was really an assumption about what users want. The third group is usually the largest, and cutting it is what makes a first version affordable.

Nothing is thrown away. The list stays, and real usage decides what comes next.

How it works

  1. 01

    We turn the idea into a scope

    Who it is for, what it must do on day one, and what it deliberately does not do yet.

  2. 02

    We design the product before building it

    You see how the product works while changing it is still cheap.

  3. 03

    We build, launch and learn

    The first version goes to real users, and what they do decides what gets built next.

Read the full process, step by step

Proof

An idea taken to a first version, then to a product a business runs on.

Business operations platform

Operiq

Bookings, schedules, attendance, SOPs, customer feedback, commission and payroll each ran as a separate process. Every month the information was pieced together again by hand, and there was no single view of how the team worked, how customers experienced the service, and how the business was performing.

One system that runs the schedule, holds the standard across branches, and calculates commission, overtime and Malaysian statutory payroll — including the export files the government portals accept.

Read the Operiq case study

FAQ

Questions we get asked

  1. 01

    What exactly is an MVP?

    The smallest version of your product that solves the problem properly for the people you built it for. Not a demo and not a cut-down version that frustrates users — a real product with a narrow scope.

  2. 02

    How much does it cost to build an MVP in Malaysia?

    It depends almost entirely on scope, which is why quotes vary so wildly before anyone has defined it. We work out what the first version has to do, then price that. If the number is higher than the idea can justify, we would rather tell you at that point.

  3. 03

    How do I decide what goes in the first version?

    Start from the one thing a user must be able to finish. Everything that is not required to complete that job can wait. We work through this with you, and we tend to argue for a smaller first version than founders expect.

  4. 04

    Do I need a technical co-founder?

    Not to build and launch a first version. A technical co-founder matters most when the product itself is the company’s long-term engineering problem. Many products get to real customers and real revenue before that question needs answering.

  5. 05

    Who owns the product and the code?

    You do. Ownership of the code, the data and the accounts is agreed in writing before work starts, so you can bring in your own team at any point.

  6. 06

    What happens after launch?

    Real users show you what planning could not. We look at what people actually do in the product, fix what gets in their way, and build the next thing based on that rather than on the original feature list.

Most often built for

Have an idea you want to test properly?

Tell us the problem you want to solve and who has it. We’ll help you work out what version one should be.

Tell us your problem