Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
Last year, a potential client approached me with what seemed like a goldmine opportunity: build a two-sided marketplace platform with a substantial budget. Every freelancer's dream, right? Wrong. I said no.
Here's why that decision taught me everything about the real purpose of MVPs in 2025 - and why most founders are building the wrong thing at the wrong time.
The client came to me excited about no-code tools and AI platforms like Bubble and Lovable. They'd heard these tools could build anything quickly and cheaply. Technically, they weren't wrong. But their core statement revealed a fundamental 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 enthusiasm and a budget. Sound familiar? Most startups are making the same expensive mistake.
In this playbook, you'll learn:
Why I recommended a 1-day MVP over a 3-month platform build
The validation framework that saves months of development time
When non-scalable methods actually scale better than "scalable" solutions
Real examples of manual validation before product development
How to test market demand without building anything
The age of AI and no-code hasn't changed the fundamental rule: distribution and validation come before development. Let me show you how to do this right.
Industry Reality
What every startup founder believes about MVPs
The startup world is obsessed with building. Every accelerator, every blog post, every founder meetup echoes the same mantra: "Build fast, ship faster, iterate quickly." The conventional wisdom sounds logical on paper.
Here's what the industry typically recommends:
Start with a technical MVP - Build the core features quickly using modern tools
Launch to get user feedback - Put something in front of customers immediately
Iterate based on data - Use analytics to guide product decisions
Scale what works - Double down on features with traction
Raise funding to accelerate - Use investment to speed up the process
This advice exists because success stories get amplified. You hear about the unicorns that "built fast and broke things," but you don't hear about the thousands of startups that burned through runway building products nobody wanted.
The problem with this conventional wisdom? It treats building as validation. It confuses activity with progress. Just because you can build something quickly doesn't mean you should. The constraint isn't technical capability anymore - it's knowing what to build and for whom.
With AI and no-code tools, the barrier to building has virtually disappeared. But this has created a new problem: founders are building beautiful, functional products that solve problems nobody actually has. The easier it becomes to build, the more important it becomes to validate first.
Most MVPs fail not because they're poorly built, but because they're solutions looking for problems. The real MVP isn't your product - it's your marketing and distribution process.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When that marketplace client came to me, I recognized the pattern immediately. They had fallen into the same trap I'd seen countless times: confusing validation with building.
The client was a small team with a decent budget, excited about disrupting a traditional industry through technology. They'd done some market research, talked to a few potential users, and convinced themselves they had product-market fit. Sound familiar?
Here's what they actually had:
An untested hypothesis about market need
No existing relationships with either side of their marketplace
No proven ability to acquire or retain users
No validated business model or pricing strategy
But they wanted to spend months building a complex platform because modern tools made it possible. This is exactly backwards.
I've seen this movie too many times. The team spends 3-6 months building, launches to crickets, then realizes they need to solve the much harder problems: finding customers, proving value, and building distribution. By then, they've burned through runway and energy on the wrong priorities.
The conversation got uncomfortable when I suggested they shouldn't build anything yet. "But we need to test our idea," they protested. That's exactly the point - you can test ideas without building products.
In my experience working with startups, the ones that succeed aren't the ones with the best technology. They're the ones that figure out distribution first, validate demand manually, and only then build products their customers are already asking for.
This client wanted to use technology to solve a distribution problem. That's like buying a Ferrari to learn how to drive.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Instead of taking their money to build a platform they didn't need, I walked them through what I call the Manual-First MVP Framework. This approach has saved multiple clients months of development time and hundreds of thousands in runway.
Here's exactly what I recommended:
Week 1: Create a validation landing page
Instead of building a marketplace, create a simple page explaining the value proposition. Use Webflow, Framer, or even a Notion page. The goal isn't to impress - it's to capture interest and start conversations.
Week 2-4: Manual customer development
Start direct outreach to potential users on both sides of the marketplace. This isn't about selling - it's about understanding their real problems, current solutions, and willingness to change behavior.
The key insight: your first MVP should be your sales and marketing process, not your product. Can you manually connect supply and demand? Can you deliver value through human processes before automating anything?
Month 2: Prove the business model manually
If the market exists, you should be able to facilitate transactions manually. Use email, WhatsApp, spreadsheets - whatever works. The goal is proving people will pay for the value you create, not building elegant systems.
I told them: "If you can't make this work manually, automation won't save you. If you can make it work manually, then you know exactly what to automate."
This framework flips the traditional approach. Instead of building then marketing, you market then build. Instead of assuming then validating, you validate then scale.
The beautiful thing about this approach? Every step teaches you something essential about your market, your customers, and your business model. By the time you're ready to build, you're not guessing - you're codifying processes that already work.
Most importantly, this approach is infinitely cheaper and faster than building the wrong thing. You can validate a marketplace idea in 30 days for the cost of a landing page and some outreach time.
Validation First
Start with manual processes before any automation to prove real market demand exists
Speed Advantage
Manual validation takes days or weeks versus months of development time
Customer Discovery
Direct user conversations reveal real problems versus assumed pain points
Business Model
Prove people will pay through manual transactions before building payment systems
The results of this approach consistently surprise founders who try it. Instead of spending 3-6 months building and hoping, you get real market feedback in weeks.
What typically happens with the Manual-First MVP Framework:
Week 1-2: Most founders discover their initial assumptions were wrong. The problems they thought existed don't actually matter to customers, or customers already have acceptable solutions.
Week 3-4: Those who persist start finding real pain points they hadn't considered. The actual problems are usually different but more urgent than their original hypothesis.
Month 2: Founders who make it this far have validated demand and often have paying customers before building anything. They understand their market, pricing, and business model.
The time saved is dramatic. Instead of 6 months building then 6 months finding customers, you spend 2 months finding customers then build exactly what they want.
More importantly, you avoid the emotional and financial cost of building something nobody wants. Failed validation costs weeks. Failed products cost months or years.
The founders who embrace this approach often discover they can run profitable businesses with much simpler technology than they originally planned. Many realize they don't need complex platforms - they need efficient operations.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons I've learned from helping startups avoid the build-first trap:
Technology amplifies existing processes - If you can't deliver value manually, automation won't create value automatically
Distribution is harder than building - Modern tools make building easy, but finding customers remains difficult
Manual work teaches you what to automate - Every manual process reveals exactly where technology adds value
Validation ≠ Building - You can test most business ideas without writing a single line of code
Speed comes from doing less, not more - Manual processes are often faster than building automated systems
Customer development can't be outsourced - Founders must personally understand their market before delegating anything
Simple solutions often win - Complex problems don't always require complex technology
The biggest mistake I see? Treating building as validation. Building is implementation, not testing. By the time you're building, you should already know exactly what you're building and why.
This approach works best for marketplace businesses, B2B services, and any business model that depends on connecting different user types. It works less well for pure technology plays or hardware products where manual delivery isn't possible.
The key insight: in the age of AI and no-code, the constraint isn't building capability - it's market understanding. Focus your limited time and energy on the hardest part: finding customers who desperately want what you're offering.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups implementing non-scalable validation:
Start with manual customer success before building automation features
Use direct sales conversations to validate feature demand
Build landing pages that test pricing before development
Validate integration needs through manual data exports
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores using manual validation methods:
Test product demand through pre-orders before inventory investment
Use simple platforms to validate before complex customization
Manually fulfill orders to understand operational requirements
Validate shipping and logistics through direct customer communication