There isn't a lot of published information that I've seen (or can quickly find) on how washio and postmates validated their business model, but I definitely agree that starting fairly lean and validating your business first even if that means a lot of manual effort up front is a better approach than investing heavily in infrastructure before launch.

Of course, if you are very successful, that manual work will pile up quickly and managing it could be quite painful, but you can have worse problems than a successful launch.

Maff Rigby's 7-day startup recommendation is definitely a good one.

Hi,

There's startup weekends everywhere.
Join one and you can get some great ideas and possibly co-founders or employees.

As always talking to potential clients and asking them if they would buy is a great validation.

Slavi

An MVP is the minimum developed form of the product (your delivery application in this case) on the market. This holistic development & marketing approach helps the project development team to check (or invalidate) product hypotheses and understand how the key functionality of the product for the target clients could be perceived and experienced by them. The approach offers insight into how the budget is invested effectively to meet the overall company objectives. The development of an MVP is a process to define consumer suffering points and to decide the correct product characteristics to fulfil these needs in due course. When developing mobile apps, an MVP is a way to ensure where only key features are built to address a particular problem and, please, early adopters. Basically, an MVP is the fundamental model of your product to meet your primary goal. But there is still confusion between an MVP and a Prototype for many people. just to clarify, an MVP is a prototype at the centre and further in the development process. Once some ideas have been prototyped and concept proof, you will be completely ready to develop an MVP or get it developed from someone else. Ideally, you should build the minimal (which you can improve) version of your product and share it with more and more people to get people used to it. When you will get your MVP developed for your Food & grocery delivery application, the prototype will be the basis for what in future would become the least viable product. MVP ‘s development follows a method of evaluation that helps you to produce a product which can continuously be improved by validating (or invalidating) assumptions, understanding what consumers want and creating new software versions that better support your customers.
Viability is all about providing users with enough value that they feel satisfied with the product or service they are paying for. The assurance of product viability is one of the main features of the development of the MVP. It is much more important what a company does than how it does it. 60% of the average product’s functionality is not at all used in most of the cases. This function is unnecessary and a waste of resources for growth. By performing one key feature, a viable product responds to consumer demands.
Before you launch the app, ask yourself, Does Your App Need An MVP? What are the business Benefits of MVP? and Does Your Delivery Business Really Need An MVP?
Let us look at these questions one-by-one:
1. Does Your App Need An MVP?
Let us have a quick look at recent Go-Globe statistics on start-ups before discussing its requirements:
1. 74% of Internet start-ups with high growth fail because of premature scaling.
2. At the same time, start-ups grow about 20 times faster which scale properly.
3. About 29% of start-ups run out of their money before they have fully established themselves.
Every company begins with an idea but there is no guarantee that every idea will attract users ‘attention. Before you trace your idea in an app, ask yourself, “Is this idea just good for you or many?”
You may be losing your sleep up to this query, but do not worry, many entrepreneurs who are planning to launch their goods on the market go through this kind of situation.
But you can sleep without stress during the night with the aid of the MVP without being stubborn about the issue.
Whether small or large, the achievements of any new product are focused entirely on the efficient and unique concept and its effect. One of the main factors that can help the company thrive is input from potential buyers at an early stage, which gives you an idea of customer needs and so entrepreneurs get acute about the minimum sustainable company’s signature approach.
Thus, the need for an MVP can be defined into 3 major categories:
a) Well, building an MVP is not the only way to reduce the start-up costs of any company. And it is not the only incomprehension with MVP, you may have. MVP is a way of quickly starting a project and realizing what to do next.
b) MVP is an acronym for a Minimal Viable Product. This definition encourages the development of a barebone protocol to test the viability of key product ideas flows. This ensures that the MVP is close to the actual thing you want to do so that all customers’ input can easily yield validated and applicable useful product ideas or main principles.
c) Since MVP has a different objective, the concept or experiment doesn’t simply prove it – it validates a new idea and user input.

2. What are the business Benefits of MVP?
1. Fast Development: The more features you want to integrate into your application, of course, the longer it takes the developers to build the product. Since MVP should have the minimum number of features, the development of an MVP takes only one to two months. It helps you to ensure that another business or start-up cannot steal your idea or release an application that incorporates the same concept earlier than you.
2. Reduction in The Overall Development Cost: This is easy to understand and obvious as well. You spend a little less time designing MVP and therefore have a lower cost of developing because you do not have to integrate all functionality into the MVP in your final product.
3. Reduced Risks for Investments: The lower the investment risk does not pay off, the more likely your ideas are to be supported by investors. Basically, MVP is a prototype for your final product, and without huge investments, you can evaluate its feasibility among the target audience. In addition, if the target audience receives the MVP well and you decide to construct the final product, the potential investors can present the MVP proving that your concept remains viable.
4. In-field Concept Testing: One of the main objectives of launching an MVP, as stated earlier, is to see if the entire concept is viable and appreciated by users. Furthermore, if you plan to fulfil your target group needs and requirements for your final product, there is no other option but to launch and follow feedback from an MVP. In addition, you can adjust the original concept, by understanding why the users love or like to use their product. This means that you can determine the value for the users of your product. For example, Instagram did just that – the start-up was based on another idea rather than photos sharing.
5. Making A Consumer Base of Loyal Customers: This is also a matter of making changes. Sometimes your product can not be found interested by the original target group you were aiming at. To find the one to value the product, you may try to promote your MSP among various target groups.
6. Adding New Features Gets Way Easier: Upon the release of the MVP, developers may add one by one new functionality. Therefore, there is no great chance that any apps will have to be reworked. The fewer characteristics that you have in your product, the features that may need to be changed or eliminated. In addition, there is far less chance of bugs being present in the final product when the developers implement a new MVP feature.

3. Does Your Delivery Business Really Need An MVP?
a) Yes: Do not expect production time to be saved here as it is a little risky but quicker development method. Yes, only during the marketing & handling feedback sessions are you likely to minimize your time expenses. Thus, MVP is not always your ally as you plan and set your objective to rise. The results show that the product can be monetized when an investor approaches a pre-packaged product rather than selling hope for the product. The risk is higher than the expectations of investors. If your MVP is weak, you will do it. There can be no other thing.
b) No: The MVP system offers a range of advantages for company owners, which include brand recognition, resource management, early customer selection and value proposition. In short, the question answers: ‘Is my idea adding value and benefiting me to people?’ The theory cannot be confirmed by a feasibility study together with concept proof and prototyping. MVP is almost a trustworthy way to get an opinion from a potential consumer early on. It eliminates the risk of spending a lot of money on something that no one would want or can teach you if a much better product already exists.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath