3 mistakes early founders make when building their MVP
After shipping several MVPs for founders, I keep seeing the same traps again and again:
1 - Overbuilding. You don’t need payments, notifications, and 5 user roles to validate. You need 2–3 workflows that prove the core value.
2 - Waiting too long. Spending 6–12 months hunting for a CTO or pitching with only slides kills momentum. Investors and users want to see something live.
3 - Confusing “toy” prototypes with real MVPs. Tools that spit out auto-generated apps look shiny but break when you try to onboard real users. Credibility matters.
The fix? Ruthlessly cut scope. Focus only on what users and investors need to believe. Get it live, test, and pivot fast if needed.
If more founders built this way, we’d see far fewer wasted months and far more companies actually learning from the market.
That’s the approach we take with 1-week MVP sprints. If you want to see what that looks like: https://mvp.ethabay.com/
What’s the biggest trap you fell into when building your first MVP?
Okay, but (and correct me if I'm wrong) when you're just starting out, if you have no audience, building a product without polish hurts your brand and makes you lose credibility, no?
“You need 2–3 workflows that prove the core value” honestly feels like advice more founders need 😭
A lot of early products become overwhelming because people keep adding complexity instead of reducing friction. CortexSage helped me think about focus and clarity very differently
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how you find it then: https'
So how do you identify what users and investors really care about and identify the MVP?
One common mistake is trying to build too many features instead of focusing on the core value the MVP should prove. Another is not validating the idea with real users early enough, which can waste a lot of time and resources. And lastly, ignoring scalability from the start—while an MVP doesn’t need to handle millions of users, some technical planning can save major headaches later.
For more insights and helpful resources, you can also check:
I agree that you can get stuck in loops of theory when you need that minimum build to prove concept and iterate with feedback. Especially with my app the actual functionality must be seen and experienced by the user to say, oh wow!