Rapid MVP Development
Rapid MVP Development — Production-Grade in 4–8 Weeks
Most 'MVPs' are either too rough to learn from or too polished to be cheap. We aim for the rare middle: production-grade enough that real users can hate it, lean enough that the next pivot doesn't require a rewrite.
- 1Week 0Scope-cut & risk audit
- 2Weeks 1–2Walking skeleton live
- 3Weeks 3–4Core flow, instrumented
- 4Weeks 5–6Polish & beta-ready
- 5Weeks 7–8Real users, post-MVP plan
Schedule slips first by cutting scope, not by extending the timeline.
What you get
A shipped product in 4–8 weeks — real auth, real data, real users, not a Figma click-through
Foundation that survives V2: real database schema, deploy pipeline, and observability from sprint one
Analytics and event tracking instrumented so you actually learn what users do
A frank prioritization conversation each week — what to cut, what to keep, what data we're waiting on
Investor-ready demo & technical due-diligence pack at the end of the engagement
An honest handoff plan: hire-in-house, continue with us, or wind down — whichever the data points to
When it fits
- You have a sharp hypothesis ('users in segment X will pay for Y to solve Z')
- You can give real users access within the engagement window
- You'd rather ship 60% of the scope and learn than ship 100% and be late
- There's a founder or product lead who'll make cut-decisions on the fly
When it doesn't
- The team can't decide between five different ideas — that's discovery, not MVP
- No path to real users in the 8 weeks — without them an MVP is just a demo
- Compliance or regulatory work (HIPAA, banking, healthcare devices) blows the timeline before week one
Process
Week 0: scope-cutting workshop and risk audit. Weeks 1–2: walking skeleton live (auth + one core flow). Weeks 3–6: build core features against a weekly demo cadence. Weeks 7–8: beta with real users, instrument the funnel, write the post-MVP roadmap.
Full delivery processPricing
Fixed-price MVPs land between $40–120k for 4–8 week scopes. Equity-friendly engagements considered for venture-backed startups. We'll cut scope to fit the budget — we won't pretend a $40k MVP is a $120k one.
See engagement modelsFAQ
- Is an MVP just a prototype?
- No — a prototype is for testing a UI hypothesis without a working backend. Our MVPs are production-grade: real auth, real database, real deploy pipeline. The point is that real users hit it with real data so you learn things a prototype can't tell you.
- How do you keep an MVP from becoming a rewrite later?
- We make boring architecture choices (Postgres, Next.js or React, simple deploy) and keep the schema honest. We won't ship hacks that can't be evolved — and we won't gold-plate things that shouldn't exist yet. The line is 'no shortcuts that block V2'.
- What happens after the 8 weeks?
- Three paths: (1) keep working with us on a quarterly engagement, (2) hand it off to your in-house team — we include a handoff sprint and a 60-day support window, or (3) wind it down because the data said 'no'. We're explicit about which path the user data is pointing to.