The first version, small enough to finish
Small enough to finish, real enough to learn from. Live in weeks, with a clear read on whether people want it.
We build the smallest real version of the product: one path, working end to end, in front of users in weeks rather than quarters. Your repository, your accounts, and a written list of what we left out on purpose.
Is it a fit?
One path
There is a single thing the product has to do for the idea to work at all.
A real user
Somebody outside the company will use it within weeks, not eventually.
A date
There is a point after which the answer stops being useful to you.
Start here. You get back whether to build it, buy something, or wait.
Settle build or buy
What you get
One path, finished
The single thing the product has to do, working end to end, instead of six things half built.
Weeks, not quarters
Scope set against a date. What does not fit goes on a written list rather than into the build.
Real enough to charge for
Accounts, payments and support included, because paying users answer a different question than free ones.
Yours from day one
Your repository, your hosting, your payment gateway. No part of it is held by us.
First versions fail from too much, almost never from too little
Founders rarely ship something too small. They ship late, with four features and no real user near any of them, because every conversation added something and nothing was ever removed. By the time it is live the runway is short, and the feedback arrives all at once about a product now too complicated to change quickly.
So the job is mostly subtraction. One path, one kind of user, one thing that has to be true for the idea to work at all. Build that, charge for it where you can, and let the next three features be chosen by people who used it rather than by the room it was planned in.
Questions we get
What counts as a first version here?
Something a real user can finish a real task in. Not a prototype and not slides. It can be small, and it has to work.
Do you take equity?
No. This is paid work and you keep the company.
What if we need to change direction?
That is the expected outcome, and it is the reason the first version stays small. Changing direction should cost weeks, not the whole build.
Can you keep building after launch?
Yes, or hand it to a developer you hire. Either way the setup notes get written.
Do we need a technical cofounder first?
Not to reach a first version. You will want one eventually, and it is far easier to attract with something live than with a document.
More in the guides and every answer in one place.
Read next
The plan this is testing, whether to build it at all, and what launch week asks of you.
Shaheer leads the work, with engineers, writers, filers and analysts behind him. C-suite operations for a San Francisco AI company, Six Sigma on the process side, Anthropic certified on the Model Context Protocol, ten years across eight industries. See what we have built