Build the product

Ship an MVP, work with builders, and iterate toward something people use.

What founders use for build the product, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

  1. The free, original essay that defined the MVP before the book existed, written plainly by the person who coined the term. It... Startup Lessons Learned (Eric Ries) Essay · ~15 min read Minimum Viable Product: a guide Eric Ries In 2 answers
  2. A builder to builder account from someone who ran the test on their own idea, with the honest distinction that a landing page... Indie Hackers Article · ~8 min read Validate your idea with a landing page before you validate your product James Fleischmann In 2 answers
  3. Lenny interviewed dozens of people who built Airbnb, DoorDash, Thumbtack, Etsy, and Uber, then distilled how they actually got... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~25 min read How to Kickstart and Scale a Marketplace Business (Part 1) Lenny Rachitsky In 2 answers
  4. If you do not want to read the whole book, this is Ries in his own words defining the MVP in a few pages. His guiding rule is... Eric Ries (Medium) Article The Minimum Viable Product: A Primer Eric Ries In 2 answers
  5. Cohen bootstrapped two companies past a hundred million in revenue, and he is blunt that a typical launch converts around one... A Smart Bear (Jason Cohen) Essay · 15 min read Excuse Me, Is There a Problem? Jason Cohen In 2 answers
  6. A practical, structured playbook for the exact fear in this question: users quietly leaking away. Lenny breaks retention into... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read How to Increase Your Product's Retention Lenny Rachitsky In 2 answers
  7. Lenny addresses prioritization specifically for early startups, where the usual scoring frameworks break down and speed matters... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read Prioritizing at startups Lenny Rachitsky In 2 answers
  8. Cohen argues the MVP framing pushes founders to ship something too broken to love, and offers an alternative: make it Simple,... A Smart Bear (Jason Cohen) Essay · ~12 min read Your customers hate MVPs. Make a SLC instead. Jason Cohen In 2 answers
  9. It is worth reading an honest account of the limits, and this one is notable for coming from a no-code platform itself. It... Bubble Blog Article The Real Drawbacks of No-Code Software Bubble In 2 answers
  10. A tactical, budget-specific walkthrough of running a real landing-page test with a small paid-traffic spend so your numbers are... GrowthMentor Article · 15 min read How to Validate Your Startup Idea Using a Pre-Launch Landing Page and Under $500 in Ads Foti Panagiotakopoulos In 2 answers
  11. For the refactoring half of your question, Fowler explains why building for imagined future needs usually costs more than it... martinfowler.com Article · 10 min read Yagni (You Aren't Gonna Need It) Martin Fowler In 2 answers
  12. Doshi names the IKEA effect, how you overvalue what you built simply because you built it, which is the quiet engine behind... Shreyas Doshi (Substack) Essay · 12 min read The Product Builder's True Journey Shreyas Doshi In 2 answers
  13. Flipkart serves exactly your users, many on 2G in smaller Indian cities, and this case study shows a fast mobile web app... web.dev (Google) Article Flipkart triples time-on-site with a Progressive Web App web.dev (Google) In 2 answers
  14. A first hand engineering account of why Flipkart, an app first Indian company, rebuilt the mobile web to reach users on weak... Medium (Progressive Web Apps) Article Building Flipkart Lite: A Progressive Web App Aditya Punjani In 2 answers
  15. Chen names the hard side of the network, the users who create most of the value and are hardest to win, and shows how to reach... Andrew Chen Book · ~368 pages The Cold Start Problem Andrew Chen In 2 answers
  16. Often the urge to rebuild comes from one abstraction that no longer fits, not from the whole codebase. Metz explains why a... sandimetz.com Essay · 8 min read The Wrong Abstraction Sandi Metz In 2 answers
  17. This is the practical manual for improving code you are afraid to touch, without a rewrite. Feathers gives you techniques to... Prentice Hall (Robert C. Martin Series) Book · 456 pages Working Effectively with Legacy Code Michael C. Feathers In 2 answers
  18. Beck argues for small, cheap tidyings over grand restructurings, and gives you a way to reason about when cleanup is worth it.... O'Reilly Media (Kent Beck) Book · 120 pages Tidy First? A Personal Exercise in Empirical Software Design Kent Beck In 2 answers
  19. The canonical case that you can reshape a system in safe, small steps rather than one dramatic rewrite. Fowler shows how to... martinfowler.com Book · 448 pages Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code (2nd Edition) Martin Fowler In 2 answers
  20. A balanced walkthrough of when building in public helps and when staying quiet is smarter, without pushing you either way. It... Mercury Article · ~10 min read Building in public: Is this the right approach for your startup? Mercury In 2 answers
  21. An honest breakdown of what a no-code MVP actually costs once you add hosting, tool subscriptions, and paid tiers, so the... Ptolemay Article · ~10 min read The real cost of no-code MVPs Ptolemay In 2 answers
  22. Chen frames the exact trap you are in: pouring signups into a bucket that leaks, where more acquisition just wastes more water.... Andrew Chen Essay · 10 min read Is Your Website a Leaky Bucket? 4 Scenarios for User Retention Andrew Chen In 2 answers
  23. If your diagnosis points at onboarding, this is the deepest single piece on fixing it, from the growth lead behind Pinterest... Casey Winters (Casey Accidental) Essay · 15 min read Why Onboarding is the Most Crucial Part of Your Growth Strategy Casey Winters In 2 answers
  24. A structured, play-by-play guide from a founder who hit the non-technical wall herself, then learned to build with no-code. It... Practical Inspiration Publishing Book · ~250 pages The No-Code Startup: The Complete Guide to Building Apps Without Code Emma Reilly In 2 answers

Show the next 24

The questions

Building your MVP 18

Build the smallest thing that tests the biggest risk.

What actually counts as an MVP, and what's the smallest one I can get away with? 20 → How do I decide which features to cut from v1? 18 → How long should building an MVP take? 19 → Should I build an MVP at all, or can I validate without one? 20 → How do I get my first users for the MVP? 17 → All 18 questions in Building your MVP →
No-code & low-code building 18

Ship a product without writing code.

Which no-code tool should I use to build my first product? 20 → Can I really build a serious business on no-code, or will I hit a wall? 18 → Should I use an AI app builder like Lovable or Replit instead of traditional no-code? 20 → How do I connect payments and handle data if I'm building no-code in India? 20 → What can I build with just a spreadsheet as the backend? 20 → All 18 questions in No-code & low-code building →
Finding & working with developers 18

Get it built when you can't build it yourself.

I'm non-technical, do I actually need a technical co-founder? 18 → How do I actually find a technical co-founder? 19 → Should I hire an agency or a freelancer to build my MVP? 17 → How do I hire good engineers in India when everyone's competing for the same talent? 18 → How do I evaluate a developer's skill if I can't code? 19 → All 18 questions in Finding & working with developers →
Product design & UX basics 18

Make it obvious, not clever.

I'm not a designer, how do I make my product not look terrible? 18 → What are the core UX principles every founder should know? 20 → How do I know if my product is confusing to users? 17 → Should I learn Figma, and how much design do I really need? 19 → Why does good design actually matter for an early-stage startup? 19 → All 18 questions in Product design & UX basics →
Shipping, iterating & roadmap 18

Ship weekly, learn constantly, prioritise ruthlessly.

How do I decide what to build next? 19 → How often should an early-stage startup ship? 19 → How do I build a roadmap without over-planning? 19 → How do I keep talking to users while I'm heads-down building? 18 → How do product teams keep a consistent shipping rhythm as they grow? 18 → All 18 questions in Shipping, iterating & roadmap →
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →