We've shipped over a dozen MVPs in the past two years. The pattern we see over and over: founders want to move fast (right), so they cut architectural corners (wrong). The result is a product that can't scale past 100 users without a painful rewrite.

The MVP paradox

An MVP should be minimal in features, not minimal in engineering quality. Those are very different things. Minimal features means you pick the one core loop that validates your hypothesis and ship only that. Minimal engineering quality means shortcuts that cost you 10x to fix later.

What we actually cut

When we scope an MVP at Devinit, here's what we ruthlessly cut: secondary features, admin panels (use the database directly for now), complex permissions (one role to start), and nice-to-have animations. What we never cut: proper data modelling, type safety, authentication security, and deployment infrastructure.

The 48-hour rule

Before we write a single line of code, we spend 48 hours in discovery. We map every user flow, define the data schema, and write the spec. This alone saves weeks of rework. Founders often resist this — they want to 'just start building'. We push back every time.