1. The Minimum Viable Product Myth
TL;DR > An MVP is not a buggy version of your final software. An MVP is a process that delivers the core value proposition manually.
The biggest misconception in tech is that an MVP requires code. A true Minimum Viable Product is just the fastest way to deliver the promised value to the customer to see if they retain.
1 Week
The MVP Deadline
Y Combinator partners famously advise founders that if their MVP takes longer than 1 to 2 weeks to build, they are building too much.
2. The 3 Types of Codeless MVPs
1. The Concierge MVP: You act as a high-end consultant. If your idea is an AI diet planner, you manually text the user their daily meals based on a spreadsheet you manage. 2. The Wizard of Oz MVP: The frontend looks like software, but a human is doing the work on the backend. When a user uploads a receipt to your "AI expense tracker," you manually read the receipt and type the data into their dashboard. 3. The Piecemeal MVP: Gluing together existing tools. You use Typeform for intake, Zapier for routing, Airtable for the database, and Stripe for payments.
MVP Type by Engineering Effort
How much code is required to test the core value proposition.
3. When to Finally Write Code
You only write code when your codeless MVP breaks. When you have so many customers paying you for your manual Concierge service that you literally cannot keep up, *then* you write the code to automate yourself out of the loop.
Congratulations. You have validated your startup.