How we scope an MVP before writing any code

Most product ideas arrive as a long list of features. That list is useful, but it is not a plan. Before we design a screen or write a line of code, we spend the first two weeks turning it into a first version that is small enough to ship and useful enough to learn from.

Start with one person and one job

We ask who will use the product first, and what they are trying to get done on a normal day. Not every user, and not every edge case. One person, one job.

For a booking platform that might be “a travel agent who needs to hold seats for a group before the price changes”. Everything in the first version should make that job faster or easier. Anything that doesn’t waits.

Separate must-have from nice-to-have

We go through the feature list with the client and sort each item into three groups:

• Must have: without it, the main job can’t be done at all
• Should have: it makes the job noticeably better, but there’s a workaround
• Later: good ideas that can wait for real usage data

The first version is the must-haves, plus the one or two should-haves that matter most. It is usually much smaller than people expect, and that’s the point.

Draw the flow before the screens

Next we map the main journey from start to finish, step by step. This is where most hidden work appears: an approval step nobody mentioned, a payment provider with its own rules, an export someone does every Friday.

Finding those now costs an afternoon. Finding them halfway through the build costs weeks.

Agree on what “done” means

By the end of the two weeks, the client has three things:

1. A short brief: who it’s for, the main job, and what’s in and out of the first version
2. A clickable prototype of the main flow
3. A timeline and budget for building it, in two-week sprints

From there, every sprint ends with something they can click. If the plan needs to change, we change it together, with the trade-offs on the table.

Why it works

A tight first version gets in front of real users sooner. Their feedback is worth more than any amount of guessing, and it tells you exactly what to build next.

If you have an idea and a long list, tell us about it. We’ll help you find the version worth building first.