Building the Product

Should I build an MVP at all, or can I validate without one?

A starting point

If you haven't talked to ~20-30 potential customers yet, don't build anything, you're not validating, you're procrastinating in code. A concierge MVP (you doing the job manually), a fake-door landing page, or a prototype often gives you the same signal for a fraction of the effort. Build only once the demand is undeniable.

Go deeper

Read

📄 Article
Freemium Intermediate

How to Validate Your B2B Startup Idea

From Lenny's Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky ~20 min read

Why we picked it

Synthesizes 25+ B2B founder interviews into concrete pre-build validation paths, so you don't build an MVP before you need one. The intro (the four validation paths) is free and directly on-topic.

  • Four paths: manual, listening, prototype, and launch-first.
  • Default to ~30 customer interviews before building.
  • Look for pain plus pull, money paid, usage, strong emotion, cold inbound.
Open lennysnewsletter.com →
📄 Article
Free Intermediate

Perfection by Subtraction, The Minimum Feature Set

From steveblank.com by Steve Blank ~8 min read

Why we picked it

The customer-development originator's clearest statement on scoping the minimum feature set to reach your earliest believers. The sharpest antidote to feature creep in v1.

  • Ship the smallest set your earlyvangelists will actually pay for.
  • Extra features before fit are engineering waste.
  • The MVP is a Customer Development tactic, get it into users' hands fast.
Open steveblank.com →
✍️ Essay
Free Beginner

Do Things That Don't Scale

From paulgraham.com by Paul Graham ~15 min read

Why we picked it

The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few customers. The cheapest, most honest way to validate demand is to go get it one person at a time.

  • Recruit your first users manually, don't wait for them to come.
  • A tiny group of users who love you beats a big group who like you.
  • Manual, unscalable effort early is a feature, not a failure.
Open paulgraham.com →

People also ask

What actually counts as an MVP, and what's the smallest one I can get away with? An MVP is the least you can build (or fake) to test your single riskiest assumption, not a shrunken version of your dream product. Ask 'what's the ... Beginner 3 resources → How do I decide which features to cut from v1? Cut everything that doesn't help you learn whether people want the core thing. Pick the one workflow your earliest, most desperate customers need a... Beginner 3 resources → How long should building an MVP take? Weeks, not months. If your MVP will take more than 4-8 weeks, your scope is wrong, not your timeline. Airbnb, Stripe, and Twitch all launched narro... Beginner 3 resources → How do I get my first users for the MVP? Recruit them by hand, one conversation at a time, this is the whole point of an early startup. Go to where your users already are, DM them, email t... Beginner 2 resources → What's the difference between an MVP and just a cheap, half-finished product? An MVP is a learning tool with a clear hypothesis attached; a cheap product is just a bad product. The point isn't to spend less money, it's to buy... Intermediate 2 resources → How do I validate an idea without building anything? Replace the product with a conversation, a manual service, or a landing page. Interview people about the problem, hand-deliver the outcome yourself... Beginner 3 resources →