Build Your First Version

The one thing

Build the smallest version a real person can actually use, in weeks, not months.

Start here

The goal is something a real person can use and react to, fast. Perfect can wait. If your idea is physical, the first version is a single sample or a pre-order. If it is software, it is the one thing that solves the core problem, and nothing else.

You will ship something that makes you a little embarrassed. That is correct. It never feels good enough, and waiting until it does is how a year disappears. A product you are proud of on day one is a product you waited far too long to launch. Build it rough, put it in front of a real person, and watch what breaks. One real use teaches you more than a month of quiet polishing alone.

What to do

• Take your smallest offer from Stage 2 and build only that. Set yourself a short deadline, measured in weeks.
• Put it in front of one real person and watch them use it. Do not explain. Do not defend. Watch where they get confused or stuck.
• Fix the one thing that broke the worst. Then put it in front of the next person and do it again.

Your move this week

Get your rough first version in front of one real person and watch them use it. Write down the first thing that broke or confused them.

You are ready when

A real person has used your first version, you watched what broke, and you fixed the worst of it and showed the next person.