Why Your MVP Should Feel "Embarrassingly Small"
I know the feeling. You’ve got a world-changing idea mapped out on whiteboards, in notebooks, and deep in your mind. The temptation is to build it all; to wait until every feature is perfect before showing anyone.
But the most powerful thing you can do is launch something that feels embarrassingly small. It’s the single biggest unlock for turning your vision into reality, and it runs counter to every instinct you have as a creator.
We started this Substack to help founders, developers, and product managers cut through the noise, and actually ship functional MVPs that work. If you’re building your first (or next) product, follow along here 👇🏻
The Power of a Single, Solved Problem
Let’s reframe what an MVP truly is. It’s not a smaller version of your grand vision; it’s a laser-focused experiment designed to test your single most critical assumption: Can you solve one painful problem for a specific audience?
When your first launch is built around this one core promise, the feedback you get is crystal clear. There are no distracting features, no noise. Just the central question: does this one thing work, and do people care?
Speed is Your Greatest Asset
As a founder, you can’t outspend your competitors, but you can always outlearn them. Your greatest competitive advantage isn’t money, it’s the speed at which you iterate based on real user feedback.
An “embarrassingly small” MVP is your shortcut to learning. Every day you delay launch to add “just one more feature” is a day your competitors spend talking to users. Getting your idea into the market beats perfecting it in private.
Avoid Building a Beautiful Ghost Town
I’ve seen it happen countless times: founders spend a year and a fortune building a beautiful, feature-rich product, only to launch to crickets. They built something nobody wanted.
Your minimal MVP is insurance against this fate. It forces you to validate demand before you invest heavily in supply. Better to discover a flawed core idea in two weeks than two years. This isn’t failure, it’s efficient, data-driven progress.
The Playbook
The Big Idea: Launching an MVP that feels too small isn’t weakness; it’s strategic focus and a commitment to learning.
Why It Matters: This approach saves you from wasting months building features nobody needs. You validate your core idea with real users and minimal resources.
Your 3-Step Playbook:
- Define Your One Thing: Write down your single most critical assumption. What’s the one problem you must solve to prove your idea has legs?
- Scope It Down Mercilessly: List all your “must-have” features. Now cross out everything that doesn’t directly solve that one problem. Be ruthless.
- Launch and Listen: Get it into the hands of a small group of ideal users. Your only goal is to listen to their feedback on that one core function, not defend your product.
What’s the one feature you’re tempted to build but know you should probably cut from your MVP? Share it in the comments below.
We started this Substack to help founders, developers, and product managers cut through the noise, and actually ship functional MVPs that work. If you’re building your first (or next) product, follow along here 👇🏻