How I built an MVP on Telegram and scaled it into an app

Everyone tells founders the same thing: build a minimum viable product (MVP), iterate fast, iterate faster, and one day you’ll find yourself with a brilliant product. But in reality, building lean is messy.

For one, what you choose to do with your MVP on day one shapes user expectations.

For context, I co-founded the social media app Amble. The original goal was simple: create a space for people to have meaningful conversations with strangers through thought-provoking prompts.

Image credit: Timmy Loen

We started it as a Telegram bot, but as our vision evolved, the product became too complex for the platform to handle. So we built an app, kept the bot MVP, and now we have over 10,000 users across the two platforms.

Looking back now, there are a few things I wish I’d known earlier going from MVP to app. While starting on Telegram gave us speed, reach, and convenience, it also came with costs that only revealed themselves later.

App-first is slow and expensive

The simplest reason we didn’t build an app first? I have lost count of how many times the app store rejected us.

The most dramatic rejection: We were told that there were “too many dating apps” on the app store. Apple even has a guideline against releasing an app in a category it deems “saturated.”

Our MVP on Telegram had none of these struggles. None of our updates needed approval, and that allowed us to move quickly, which mattered.

MVPs also give you a strong foundation to work on. We chose Telegram because its messaging infrastructure was rock-solid.

See also: Endowus co-founder shares its twist on lackluster ESOPs

Since our goal was to be a conversation-first social app, using existing chat infrastructure allowed us to focus our early efforts on figuring out how to facilitate dialogue, rather than building messaging features from scratch. It was freeing to deliver value directly without getting bogged down in non-essentials.

Typically, building an app is both slower and pricier. Once you cross 1,000 monthly active users, most messaging providers start charging around US$300 to US$400 per month just to keep the lights on.

That’s why your base matters: If it already covers the essentials, you get to spend your energy on 10x-ing the value add, not reinventing the wheel.

MVP doesn’t mean mediocre

Your app better be an upgrade

Don’t retire your MVP too soon

Growth demands risk