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 comprehensive two-sided marketplace platform. The budget was substantial, the technical challenge was interesting, and it would have been one of my biggest projects to date.
I said no.
Not because I couldn't deliver, but because they were making the classic mistake that kills 90% of startups before they even begin. They wanted to build first, validate later. They had fallen into the trap of thinking lean product strategy means "build fast with fewer features" instead of understanding what it actually means.
Here's what happened when I challenged their assumptions, and why most founders get lean product development completely wrong. You'll learn:
Why your first MVP should take one day to build, not three months
The difference between product validation and product creation
How to test market demand without writing a single line of code
The real reason most "lean" startups still burn through cash
A framework for deciding when to build vs when to validate
This isn't another theoretical piece about SaaS development. This is what actually happened when I applied true lean thinking to a real project, and why it probably saved them from burning six figures on the wrong solution.
Industry Reality
What every startup founder thinks lean means
Walk into any startup accelerator or browse through Product Hunt, and you'll hear the same "lean" advice repeated like a mantra:
Build an MVP with minimal features - Strip everything down to the core functionality
Launch fast and iterate - Get something out there in weeks, not months
Use no-code tools - Leverage Bubble, Webflow, or other platforms to speed development
Test with real users - Put your MVP in front of customers immediately
Pivot based on feedback - Be ready to change direction quickly
This sounds logical. It's what every startup blog preaches. It's what most accelerators teach. But here's the problem: they're all starting at step 5 when they should be starting at step 1.
The conventional wisdom treats "lean" as a development methodology - faster, cheaper ways to build software. But that misses the entire point of what Eric Ries was actually talking about in The Lean Startup. He wasn't advocating for quicker development cycles; he was advocating for validated learning before you build anything at all.
Most "lean" startups I see are still burning through $50K-$200K building their "minimal" MVP. They're just doing it faster than before. They call it lean because they didn't build the advanced analytics dashboard in version one. But they still built a full product with user accounts, payment processing, email systems, and mobile responsiveness.
That's not lean. That's just efficient waste.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
This client came to me after hearing about the no-code revolution and new AI tools. They'd read about platforms like Bubble and were excited about building their marketplace idea quickly and cheaply. Technically, they weren't wrong - you can build complex platforms with these tools faster than ever before.
But their core statement revealed the fundamental flaw: "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
I asked them a simple question: "If you're truly testing market demand, why would your test take three months to build?"
That's when I realized they were conflating two completely different activities. They thought building a functional product was market validation. They believed that creating something people could use would tell them if people wanted to use it.
I've seen this pattern repeatedly in my consulting work. Founders get excited about the building phase because it feels productive. You can see progress. You can demo features. You can check tasks off a list. But none of that tells you if you're solving a problem people will pay for.
The more I dug into their situation, the more I realized they needed to step back entirely. They didn't need a product consultant - they needed a reality check on their approach to validation.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Instead of taking their money to build a platform they might not need, I recommended what I call the One-Day Rule: If you're truly testing market demand, your MVP should take one day to build, not three months.
Here's the framework I walked them through:
Day 1: Create Your Assumption Test
I told them to create a simple landing page or Notion document explaining their value proposition. Not a functional marketplace - just a clear description of what they wanted to build and why someone would use it. This took 4 hours.
Week 1: Manual Demand Generation
Start manual outreach to potential users on both sides of their marketplace. Don't try to onboard them to a platform that doesn't exist. Instead, manually facilitate the connections they claimed their platform would automate. This means:
Finding potential suppliers through LinkedIn, cold email, and existing networks
Identifying potential buyers through the same channels
Manually matching them via email, WhatsApp, or phone calls
Facilitating transactions manually to understand the real friction points
Week 2-4: Validate Through Service
I pushed them to manually broker at least 10 successful connections. Not signups, not interest - actual completed transactions facilitated through their manual process. Only after proving demand would we consider building automation.
The Key Insight: Your MVP Should Be Your Marketing and Sales Process, Not Your Product
This approach reveals three critical things that building a platform first cannot:
Actual demand - Are people willing to engage when it requires effort from them?
Real friction points - Where do manual processes break down? These become your features.
Economic viability - Can you facilitate valuable transactions without burning cash on development?
I explained that in 2025, the constraint isn't building - thanks to AI and no-code tools, anyone can build almost anything. The constraint is knowing what to build and for whom. Distribution and validation come before development, not after.
Manual First
Test demand through service delivery before building any product features
Assumption Mapping
Document every assumption about user behavior, willingness to pay, and market dynamics
Economic Proof
Facilitate real transactions manually to prove the business model works financially
Feature Discovery
Identify automation opportunities only after manual processes reveal actual friction points
Following this framework completely changed their trajectory. Instead of spending three months building something that might work, they spent four weeks proving it would work.
They discovered that one side of their marketplace was much harder to acquire than anticipated. Through manual outreach, they learned that their assumed pain point wasn't actually urgent enough to drive behavior change. But they also uncovered a different problem that the same users were actively trying to solve.
This led to a pivot that took two weeks to validate instead of six months to build and then discover wasn't working. When they finally did start building, they had:
A waiting list of users who had already engaged manually
Proven demand for specific features
A clear understanding of pricing sensitivity
Evidence of repeat usage patterns
The platform they eventually built looked nothing like their original concept, but it solved a real problem for real users who were already engaged in the process.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
This experience reinforced several principles I now share with every client considering product development:
Lean means learning, not building faster - The goal is validated learning before development, not efficient development before learning.
Manual processes reveal real needs - Automation should eliminate proven friction, not create sophisticated solutions for assumed problems.
Distribution is harder than development - In the age of AI and no-code, anyone can build. Not everyone can find customers.
Time spent validating saves months of building - Four weeks of manual testing prevents four months of building the wrong thing.
Your first customers should be engaged before you have a product - If you can't manually facilitate value, automation won't magically create it.
Assumptions are expensive when they're wrong - Every assumption built into code becomes technical debt when reality differs from expectations.
Success is proving you shouldn't build, not proving you can - The best outcome of validation might be deciding not to build at all.
The most important lesson: In 2025, anyone can build a sophisticated product quickly. The competitive advantage comes from knowing exactly what to build because you've already proven it works manually. That's what lean product strategy actually means.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups:
Start with manual onboarding and support before building self-service features
Test pricing and feature demand through personal sales calls
Validate integrations by manually connecting systems before building APIs
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores:
Test product demand through pre-orders or waitlists before inventory investment
Validate shipping and fulfillment manually before automating logistics
Prove customer support needs before building help systems