The hardest conversation we have with new clients is about scope. Every founder has a vision — and that vision usually includes 50 features. Our job is to help them ship with 5.
The MVP Mindset
An MVP isn't a crappy version of your full product. It's the minimum set of features needed to test your core hypothesis. Everything else is a distraction.
The Prioritization Framework
We use a simple framework:
1. What's the core value proposition?
If your product does one thing, what is it? That one thing is your MVP. Everything else is an enhancement.
2. What must work for the core to work?
Authentication, basic data storage, core workflows. These are non-negotiable dependencies.
3. What can wait?
Admin dashboards, analytics, edge cases, integrations, mobile apps — almost everything can wait until you've validated the core.
Common Mistakes
- Building admin tools first: You don't need a beautiful admin panel for your first 10 users
- Optimizing for scale: Your MVP won't have scale problems. Ship first.
- Perfect design: Functional beats beautiful at the MVP stage
- Edge cases: Handle the 80% case. The 20% can be manual.
The Goal
The goal of an MVP isn't to be complete. It's to learn. The faster you ship, the faster you learn. The faster you learn, the more likely you are to build something people actually want.
Real-World Prioritization Example
Client came to us wanting: Full project management tool with teams, time tracking, Gantt charts, file storage, notifications, integrations, mobile apps, admin dashboard, analytics, and billing.
We asked: "If you could only ship ONE feature to test whether people will pay for this, what would it be?"
Their answer after thinking: "Task assignment with due dates. That's the core problem we solve — people forget what they're supposed to be working on."
What we actually built for MVP:
- Create tasks with title, description, due date
- Assign tasks to team members
- Mark tasks as complete
- Email notification when assigned
- Simple list view (no Gantt charts)
- Stripe checkout (one plan, $29/month)
What we didn't build: File uploads, time tracking, analytics, mobile apps, complex permissions, API, integrations, custom branding.
Timeline: 6 weeks. Result: 47 paying customers in first 3 months. Validated the core hypothesis. Then added features based on actual user requests, not guesses. Similar to the approach outlined in realistic MVP timelines.
The Validation Mindset
Every feature in your MVP should be testing a hypothesis. If you can't articulate the hypothesis, you're not ready to build that feature.
Bad hypothesis: "Users need analytics."
Good hypothesis: "Users will pay $10/month more for a plan that includes usage analytics because they need to report activity to their managers."
The good hypothesis is testable. You can validate it without building analytics — talk to potential customers and ask if they'd pay more for it and why. Learn more about evaluating development priorities.
Features that almost never belong in an MVP:
- Admin dashboards (you have 10 users, use a database GUI)
- Analytics and reporting (talk to users, don't rely on dashboards)
- Multiple user roles and permissions (everyone is an admin until you have 100+ users)
- Mobile apps (responsive web works until proven otherwise)
- Third-party integrations (build the core first)
- API access (no one will integrate until you have users)
- Customizable branding (solves a problem nobody has yet)
Features that often DO belong in an MVP:
- One core workflow that solves the main problem
- Basic authentication (email/password is fine)
- Payment processing (if B2B SaaS, you need to validate willingness to pay)
- Email notifications for critical events
- Basic error messages (don't silently fail)
You have 12 weeks and $40,000 to build an MVP. Your developer wants to build: user authentication (with OAuth and magic links), role-based permissions, admin dashboard, analytics, email notifications, API integrations, mobile responsiveness, dark mode, onboarding flow, in-app chat, and payment processing. That's $60,000 of features squeezed into a $40,000 budget. Worse, it's 18 weeks of work crammed into 12. Your developer isn't trying to deceive you—they're trying to build a complete product. But MVPs aren't about completeness. They're about validated learning. Every feature you build that users don't need is money and time you can't get back. According to analysis of 100+ YC startups, successful MVP s average 3-5 core features, not 15. The winners ruthlessly cut scope to ship fast, learn from real users, and build what actually matters.
The goal of an MVP isn't to be complete. It's to learn. And to learn, you have to ship. Every week spent building features users might want is a week you're not learning what they actually want. This post gives you a decision framework: how to identify the 3-5 features that actually test your core hypothesis, how to validate assumptions before building, and how to resist the temptation to add "just one more thing" that delays your launch by a month.
Key Takeaways
- MVP = minimum features to test core hypothesis, not a crappy version of the full product
- Prioritize by asking: what's the ONE feature that tests if people will pay?
- Build what must work for the core to work; defer everything else until validated
- Common mistakes: building admin tools first, optimizing for scale, pursuing perfect design, handling edge cases
- Almost never belong in MVP: admin dashboards, analytics, complex permissions, mobile apps, integrations
- Every feature should test a specific, measurable hypothesis — if you can't articulate it, don't build it yet
Ruthless prioritization isn't about cutting corners. It's about respecting your users' feedback by getting it as quickly as possible.