Build Your MVP Right: A Live Product, Without Overbuilding.

An MVP is the smallest thing you can put in front of real users that still answers the question you're actually asking. Not a demo, not a deck, and not version one of everything you eventually want.

The point is evidence. You end up knowing something you only believed before.

These get used interchangeably and then scoped as if they were the same thing, which is where budgets go (the full comparison):

• A prototype — proves a design idea, throwaway, no real data behind it
• A proof of concept — proves a technical risk is survivable, never meant for users
• A pilot — a finished product given to a small group, which is a later problem
• A waitlist page — measures interest, not whether the thing works

1. 01Name the assumption that sinks the business if it's wrong — everything else is decoration
2. 02Cut what doesn't test it, which is usually most of the first feature list (the mistakes we see repeatedly)
3. 03Keep what has to be real — real auth, real data, and real payments if money is part of the question
4. 04Instrument it before launch, so the result is evidence rather than a debate about vibes
5. 05Fix the scope in writing before any code, including what is deliberately not in it
6. 06Talk about cost openly — what drives it up, and what doesn't (cost breakdown)

• Founders with one assumption worth spending real money to test
• Operators inside a company validating a new line without committing a full team to it
• Anyone quoted six months for something that should take weeks
• Technical founders who could build it but would rather spend the time on customers

• A deployed product real users can actually use
• The instrumentation to read what happened after launch
• Source, infrastructure and documentation you own
• A codebase that can become v2 — not one that has to be thrown away first
• An honest read on what the results mean, including when they say stop