Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
Last year, a potential client approached me with an exciting opportunity: build a two-sided marketplace platform with a substantial budget. The technical challenge was interesting, and it would have been one of my biggest projects to date.
I said no.
Here's why—and what this taught me about the real purpose of MVPs in 2025. The client came to me excited about the no-code revolution and new AI tools. They'd heard these tools could build anything quickly and cheaply. They weren't wrong—technically, you can build a complex platform with these tools.
But their core statement revealed the problem: "We want to see if our idea is worth pursuing." They had no existing audience, no validated customer base, no proof of demand. Just an idea and enthusiasm.
In this playbook, you'll learn:
Why I recommend building your MVP in days, not months
The exact framework I use to validate ideas before building
How to leverage Bubble and AI for rapid prototyping
When to build vs. when to validate manually
The real metrics that matter for early-stage products
This approach has saved my clients thousands of dollars and months of development time. More importantly, it's helped them focus on what actually matters: finding product-market fit before burning through resources.
Industry wisdom
What every startup founder has been told
Every startup accelerator, business guru, and product manager will tell you the same thing about MVPs: "Build the simplest version of your product that delivers core value." Sounds logical, right?
The traditional MVP wisdom goes like this:
Identify your core hypothesis - What's the main problem you're solving?
Strip away non-essential features - Focus on the absolute minimum
Build quickly and cheaply - Use no-code tools and templates
Launch to early adopters - Get feedback and iterate
Measure and learn - Use data to guide next steps
This conventional wisdom exists because it worked in a different era. When building required months of development and significant investment, creating a "minimum viable" version made perfect sense. You needed to test your assumptions without betting the farm.
But here's where this approach falls short in 2025: the constraint isn't building anymore—it's knowing what to build and for whom. With AI and no-code tools, you can build almost anything in days. The real challenge is validation.
Most founders interpret "MVP" as "simplified product" when they should interpret it as "fastest way to test my biggest assumption." That's a fundamentally different approach, and it's what separates successful startups from those that burn through runway building products nobody wants.
The traditional approach still treats building as the expensive part. In reality, distribution and validation are where the real work happens.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When this client approached me about their marketplace platform, I immediately recognized the pattern. They'd done what most entrepreneurs do: fallen in love with their solution before validating the problem.
The project scope was impressive: user authentication, payment processing, review systems, messaging between buyers and sellers, mobile responsiveness. They'd sketched out wireframes, created user personas, even picked a color scheme. Everything looked professional.
But when I asked them three simple questions, the conversation changed completely:
"Have you manually connected buyers and sellers before?"
"Do you have a waiting list of people wanting this solution?"
"What's the simplest way to test if this marketplace is needed?"
Their answers revealed the real situation: no manual validation, no audience, no proof of demand. They wanted to build a platform to "see if their idea would work." That's exactly backwards.
I'd seen this same pattern with another client six months earlier. A B2B startup wanted a complex onboarding platform. We spent weeks building workflows, user dashboards, and integration systems. Beautiful product, zero demand. They eventually pivoted completely after burning through most of their development budget.
That experience taught me something crucial: if you're truly testing market demand, your MVP should take one day to build—not three months. Even with AI and no-code tools, building a functional two-sided platform takes significant time. But that's not the point.
The marketplace client was solving a distribution problem, not a product problem. They needed to prove people would use their service before building the service. That requires a completely different approach.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Instead of building their platform, I walked them through what I call the "Manual MVP Framework." This approach has worked for every client who's implemented it properly, and it's saved thousands in development costs.
Day 1: Create the Simplest Possible Test
I told them to create a simple landing page—not even in Bubble, just a basic Notion page explaining their value proposition. One page, clear headline, simple description of what they'd provide.
The goal wasn't to look professional. The goal was to test if anyone cared about the solution. Within two hours, they had a page live.
Week 1: Manual Outreach and Validation
Rather than building matching algorithms, I had them manually reach out to potential users on both sides of their marketplace. LinkedIn messages, email outreach, direct conversations.
This isn't scalable—that's the point. If they couldn't manually connect 10 buyers with 10 sellers, why would an automated platform solve anything? Manual processes reveal the real friction points.
Week 2-4: Manual Operations
For the clients who showed genuine interest, they handled everything manually. Email introductions, WhatsApp groups for communication, PayPal for payments. Messy? Absolutely. Effective? That's what we needed to find out.
Here's where most founders resist: "But this doesn't scale!" Exactly. You're not trying to scale yet. You're trying to prove there's something worth scaling.
When to Build: After Proving Manual Demand
Only after successfully handling 20-30 manual transactions should you consider automation. By then, you understand the real user journey, the actual pain points, and the features that matter most.
This is when Bubble becomes powerful. Once you know exactly what needs to be built, Bubble's visual development environment lets you create that solution quickly. But you're building based on proven demand, not hopeful assumptions.
The lesson? Your MVP should be your marketing and sales process, not your product. Distribution and validation come before development, always.
Validation First
Test demand manually before building anything automated
Manual Operations
Handle the first 20-30 transactions by hand to understand the real user journey
Bubble for Automation
Use Bubble only after proving manual demand - then build exactly what users need
Learn Fast
Fail quickly on assumptions, succeed faster on proven demand
The marketplace client followed this framework religiously. Here's what happened:
Week 1 Results: Their Notion page generated 47 sign-ups for early access. More importantly, 12 people responded to their manual outreach with genuine interest.
Week 2-4 Results: They manually facilitated 8 successful transactions. Revenue: $3,200. More valuable than the money were the insights: users needed features they hadn't considered and didn't care about features they'd planned to build.
Month 2 Decision: Based on manual success, they decided to build—but a much simpler version focused on the three features users actually requested. Total Bubble development time: 2 weeks instead of the originally planned 3 months.
Unexpected Outcome: The manual process became their competitive advantage. While building automation, they continued handling high-value transactions manually, providing white-glove service that automated competitors couldn't match.
Six months later, they're generating $15K monthly revenue with a lean team and clear product-market fit. The manual validation phase saved them from building the wrong product entirely.
Compare this to the traditional approach: 3 months building, 2 months struggling to find users, 6 months pivoting. They would have burned through runway before finding product-market fit.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
After implementing this framework with over a dozen clients, here are the key lessons that apply to any startup:
Manual validation reveals real demand faster than any survey or focus group. People lie in interviews but pay with time and money.
If you can't do it manually, automation won't fix it. Software doesn't create demand—it scales existing demand.
The best MVPs feel like services, not products. Personal attention early on creates loyal customers who forgive rough edges later.
Bubble shines when you know exactly what to build. It's perfect for rapid development once you've validated the concept manually.
Most "product" problems are actually distribution problems. Focus on finding customers before optimizing the customer experience.
Build what users pay for, not what they say they want. Manual transactions reveal true willingness to pay.
Scale the process, not the product. Sometimes manual operations become your competitive moat.
The biggest mindset shift: stop thinking "minimum viable product" and start thinking "maximum viable learning." Your goal isn't to build the smallest possible version of your vision. Your goal is to learn the most possible about your market with the least possible investment.
This approach works regardless of industry. I've seen it succeed with SaaS products, marketplaces, and even e-commerce brands. The key is resisting the urge to build before you understand.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
Start with manual validation before any development
Use simple tools (Notion, email) to test core assumptions
Prove demand with 20+ manual transactions
Build in Bubble only after understanding exact user needs
For your Ecommerce store
Test product-market fit with manual order fulfillment
Validate demand through pre-orders or waiting lists
Use Bubble for rapid storefront development after validation
Focus on customer acquisition before product features