Published August 28, 2026
The failure mode of a first software version is not ugly UI. It is a list of features that each sound reasonable and together never ship.
One primary user, one primary job
Write a sentence in this shape: “When [user] needs to [job], they use this product instead of [current workaround].” If you cannot finish that sentence, you do not have an MVP yet. You have a theme.
Park anything that is not required for that job
- Extra user roles that only matter after you have ten customers
- Billing complexity when you can invoice the first users by hand
- AI features that do not change whether the core workflow works
- Admin for scenarios nobody has lived through
Choose the depth of the build
If you need a working site, tool, or prototype to learn from clicks, a vibe coding engagement is often enough. If you need accounts, a data model that will survive a second tenant, and a foundation for billing later, that is SaaS development. Mixing the two without saying so is how estimates lie.
Bring the one-sentence job and the parked-feature list to a SaaS development quote or a vibe coding quote. That is more valuable than a 20-page specification that still will not decide v1.