Fe/male Switch

FREE PLANNER · SCOPE CUTTER · 30-DAY TEST PLAN

Minimum viable product planner: cut your idea down and build it in 30 days

A minimum viable product is the smallest version of your idea that real people can use, sign up for or pay for, built to answer one question: do they want it? This free planner walks you through it in three parts. Write a one-sentence promise and pick your riskiest assumption, sort up to 8 features into KEEP, LATER and DROP against the hours you really have, then get one test type and a week-by-week 30-day plan with a pass/stop rule you set yourself. Below it: where the term comes from, five test types with real startup cases, a comparison with prototypes and a worked example.

Open the planner

How it works

Minimum viable product planner

Write your promise, pick the riskiest assumption, sort your features and get a test type plus a 30-day plan. A labelled example (a meal-planning app for busy parents) is loaded so you can see a full result first.

Part 1

Your promise and your riskiest assumption

Example loaded: Mila's meal-planning app for busy parents (invented). Replace it with your own idea, or press "Start from zero".

For (who)

who struggle with (problem)

my product (does what)

Which assumption would sink the idea if it were wrong?

Part 2

Scope cutter: what goes into the first version?

For each feature: is it needed to test the promise, and how big is it? S = 4 hours, M = 12, L = 30 (our estimates). Type exact hours if you know them.

Hours you can work per week

FeatureNeeded for the test?SizeHours

KEEP

LATER

DROP

Part 3

Your skills, budget and pass/stop rule

Can you build software?

Budget for the 30 days

Pass if at least

Stop if fewer than

Your test and 30-day plan

Next steps: paste your plan into a chat with Elona, your AI co-founder, to argue about the KEEP list and write the offer page, or run the 30 days quest by quest in the Fe/male Switch startup game. Need a sharper idea first? Try the free generators.

Plan it with Elona Play the startup game Startup ideas generator

Sources and date: Eric Ries (Startup Lessons Learned, 2009; TechCrunch, 2011), Kromatic's Real Startup Book, Buffer blog (2011), Fortune (2012), MIT Technology Review (2016), TechCrunch (2010); checked 8 November 2026. Effort sizes and the stop numbers are our suggestions. Nothing you type leaves your browser.

What is a minimum viable product, in plain words?

Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, gave founders the definition most people quote today. On his blog Startup Lessons Learned (3 August 2009) he wrote that the minimum viable product is "that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort." In plain words: build the cheapest thing that shows you how real customers behave, then decide what to do next.

The term is older than Ries's post. Frank Robinson of the product development firm SyncDev first used it in 2001, according to a 2017 write-up by Sean Murphy that quotes SyncDev's own archived pages. Robinson described it as "the right-sized product for your company and your customer": big enough that people adopt it and pay, small enough to keep the risk low.

Ries warns in the same 2009 post that the name misleads people. The point is learning, so a tiny product that teaches you nothing misses the target. He also writes that a founder who only wants to scratch a clear itch or build something for a quick flip does not need one at all. The Lean Startup site calls this cycle Build, Measure, Learn and states that "the unit of progress for Lean Startups is validated learning."

Here is why it matters for a first-time founder. CB Insights studied 431 venture-backed startups that shut down since 2023 (report of 5 March 2026). Among the 385 with a known reason, 43% cited poor product-market fit, and two-thirds of those were early-stage companies that never found a market. A good first version is the cheapest way to find out whether you are building one of them.

1. One promise

One sentence: for whom, which problem, what your product does. If you need two sentences, you have two products. Test one.

2. One riskiest assumption

Will people want it, pay for it, come back, or can you even deliver it? Pick the one that would sink you if it were wrong.

3. One pass/stop number

Write down before launch how many sign-ups, payments or repeat uses count as a pass. A number you set afterwards always looks like a pass.

Minimum viable product vs prototype vs proof of concept: what is the difference?

These four words get mixed up in pitch decks all the time. The difference lies in who uses the thing and what question it answers. A prototype shows how something would look and work. A minimum viable product goes to real customers in real conditions, so it can answer the question that decides your company: will people sign up, pay and come back?

Stage	Question it answers	Who sees it	Typical form	Shows demand?
Proof of concept	Can this be built at all?	You, your team, a technical advisor	A rough test of one technical part	No
Prototype	How would it look and work?	Test users in a session you run	Clickable screens, a paper mock-up, a demo	Weakly: people say what they would do
Minimum viable product	Do real customers want it enough to act?	Real customers, in their own life	A landing page, a hand-delivered service, a pre-sale, one working feature	Yes: sign-ups, payments, repeat use
Full product	Can it grow and make money at scale?	Everyone in the market	A complete, supported product	Yes, at a much higher cost per lesson

Our comparison, 8 November 2026.

A simple test: if nobody outside your team can sign up, pay or come back, you have a prototype. Dropbox shows the line well. Its three-minute video was a demo of how the product was meant to work, and it became a minimum viable product the moment strangers could join the waiting list.

What are the five types of minimum viable product, with examples?

Each type tests a different assumption. Costs and times below are the estimates in Kromatic's Real Startup Book, a free library of lean experiments, and every example comes from the founder's own account or a news report. Let's break it down.

Test type	What it tests	Cost and time (Real Startup Book)	Startup that tested this way
Landing page smoke test	Do people want it enough to leave an email or click buy?	$30 to $600, about 4 days to 2.5 weeks (mostly ad budget)	Dropbox: a three-minute demo video took the beta waiting list from 5,000 to 75,000 people overnight. Buffer: two pages, then a pricing page added in between
Concierge	Does your solution solve the problem when you deliver it by hand, openly?	$0 to $300, about 2 weeks to 3 months	Food on the Table: Manuel Rosso went along with Austin grocery shoppers and emailed personal meal plans before writing any software
Wizard of Oz	Will people use and pay for it when it looks automatic and a person does the work behind the screen?	$40 to $400, about 1 to 3 weeks	Zappos (then Shoesite.com, 1999): Nick Swinmurn photographed a local store's shoes, put them online and bought each ordered pair at full price
Pre-sale	Will people pay before it exists?	$0 to $700, about 3 to 8 weeks	Pebble: asked for $100,000 on Kickstarter in 2012 and raised $10.3 million
Single-feature build	Does one feature bring people back on its own?	$20 to $300, about 3 to 6 weeks	Instagram (2010): the team cut the Burbn check-in app down to sharing photos and focused on doing that one thing well

Costs in US dollars as shown in Kromatic's Real Startup Book, checked 8 November 2026. Cases: Eric Ries in TechCrunch (2011), Joel Gascoigne on the Buffer blog (2011), Real Startup Book (Food on the Table), Fortune (2012), MIT Technology Review (2016), TechCrunch (2010).

Pick the type from your riskiest assumption. The planner above does this for you, and here is the logic behind it:

"Will people want it?" Run a landing page smoke test. Our guide to smoke test marketing shows 5 ways to set one up, and landing page pre-launch validation covers the page itself.
"Will they pay?" Run a pre-sale. A payment is the strongest signal a stranger can give you. Read getting paid before you build and how to price your first version.
"Can I deliver it?" Run a concierge test if you have no tech skills, or a Wizard of Oz test if you can put a simple app or form in front of the manual work.
"Will they come back?" Build one feature and measure who returns. Without build skills, deliver that feature by hand as a concierge service first.

Buffer's founder Joel Gascoigne combined two of these. His first test checked whether people would even consider using the app; then he added a pricing page between the landing page and the signup form. He built the first version in evenings and weekends over 7 weeks and had his first paying customer within 4 days of launch.

How do you build a minimum viable product in 30 days?

Thirty days is enough for one honest test, and the planner writes this plan with your own numbers. Here it is, step by step:

Days 1 to 3: write the promise. "For [who], who struggle with [problem], my product [does what]." Pick the riskiest assumption and the test type.
Week 1: talk to 10 people. Ten people from your target group, using the 15-minute problem interview script. Ask how they solve the problem today and what it costs them. Write down your pass/stop rule before anyone sees the product.
Week 2: build the KEEP list and nothing else. A landing page, a payment link, a form, a manual process or one working feature. Features on the LATER list stay there.
Week 3: put it in front of real people. Post in the communities where your customers already are, message the people you interviewed, or run a small ad budget. Count every visitor.
Week 4: measure and talk. Count sign-ups, payments or repeat uses against your rule. Call 5 people who acted and 5 who did not.
Day 30: decide. Pass: build the next item from LATER, or run a bigger test. Between pass and stop: change one thing (price, audience or message) and rerun for 2 weeks. Stop: go back to the problem before writing more code.

You do not need a developer for most of these tests. Carrd's Pro Lite plan costs $9 per year for 3 sites, and Pro Standard costs $19 per year for 10 sites with custom domains and forms (prices as shown on carrd.com, billed yearly, no tax note). Tally's free plan lists unlimited forms, unlimited submissions and payment collection, and Tally Pro costs €20 per month (tally.so, no VAT note). Our guide to building a first version with no-code tools in 30 days goes through the setup, and the 30-day validation playbook adds daily tasks.

Need to know what the bigger build will cost if the test passes? The start-up costs calculator adds up the first year line by line.

Which features should your first version include?

Only the features you need to test the promise. Everything else waits for month 2, even the good ideas. The scope cutter in the planner asks two questions per feature and sorts the answers:

KEEP: needed to test the promise. Without it, a customer cannot get the result you promise or you cannot measure the answer.
LATER: not needed for the test, and small or medium effort. Good ideas for month 2.
DROP: not needed for the test, and large effort. These eat your 30 days and teach you nothing about demand.

Effort comes in three sizes: S = 4 hours, M = 12 hours, L = 30 hours. These are our planning estimates for a first-time founder, and you can type exact hours instead. The planner adds up the KEEP list and compares it with the hours you have: hours per week × 4. When KEEP does not fit, it tells you so and shows which feature to fake by hand. A shopping list you write yourself in a shared document counts as a feature as long as the customer gets it.

Instagram shows how far a cut can go. TechCrunch reported in September 2010 that the team took what it had learned from the more complicated Burbn check-in app and focused on doing one thing well: sharing photos. Systrom called it a life-sharing app, and the preview counted 11 photo filters. For more ways to rank a long list, see our guide to feature prioritization frameworks.

What mistakes do first-time founders make with a minimum viable product?

The six below come up again and again. The first four rest on the sources on this page; the last two are our advice from working with first-time founders.

Building for months before anyone sees it. Ries's definition asks for the least effort that still teaches you something. Buffer went from idea to a first paying customer with a 7-week build.
Counting friends and family. The Real Startup Book tells you to leave purchases from friends and family out when you calculate a pre-sale conversion rate.
Judging too early. The same book asks for at least 200 unique visitors before you read a landing page result, and treats fewer than 30 purchases as directional only, to be checked with 5 to 10 follow-up conversations.
Setting the target afterwards. Set the success threshold before launch, the Real Startup Book says. The planner makes you type it in on day one.
Hiding the price. A free waitlist measures curiosity. Show a price, even on a page that only collects emails, the way Buffer added its pricing page. (Our advice.)
Asking "would you use it?" People are kind in interviews. Ask about what they did last week and what they paid for, then watch what they do with your product. (Our advice.)

Want the long list? Read the 10 most common first-version mistakes that kill startups, and find your first testers with our guide to finding your first 10 customers.

Worked example: a minimum viable product for a meal-planning app

This is an invented example with stated assumptions, and it matches the example loaded in the planner. Mila wants to build a meal-planning app for working parents. She has 10 hours a week next to her job, so 40 hours in 30 days. She uses no-code tools, has a budget of about €50 and thinks her riskiest assumption is "will they pay?". Her promise: "For working parents with young kids, who struggle with deciding what to cook every night, my product sends a weekly dinner plan with a ready shopping list."

Feature	Needed to test the promise?	Effort	Result
Weekly plan with 5 dinners	Yes	M (12 h)	KEEP
Shopping list from the plan	Yes	S (4 h)	KEEP
Offer page with price and payment link	Yes	S (4 h)	KEEP
Recipe search	No	M (12 h)	LATER
Swap a dinner you don't like	No	S (4 h)	LATER
Family accounts	No	M (12 h)	LATER
Native mobile app	No	L (30 h)	DROP
Nutrition tracking	No	L (30 h)	DROP

Invented example. Effort sizes are our planning estimates.

Her KEEP list takes 20 of her 40 hours, which leaves 20 hours for interviews, posting and talking to buyers. The planner recommends a pre-sale: an offer page for the first month at €5, paid up front, with the first plans written by hand and emailed, the way Food on the Table started.

Her rule follows the Real Startup Book's example of at least 3% of people who see the offer buying. She aims to put the page in front of 200 parents, so pass = 6 paid pre-orders from strangers. She sets stop = fewer than 3, our suggestion for a clear no. On day 30 she has 8 payments from 230 visitors (3.5%), so she keeps going: month 2 adds the dinner swap from her LATER list and a second round of 200 visitors at €7.

How do Elona and the startup game help you build your first version?

Fe/male Switch is a startup game for first-time founders, and Elona is the AI co-founder who builds the company with you. Both follow the logic of this page: test with real customers first, build second.

1. Plan it with Elona

Paste your copied plan into a chat with Elona, your AI co-founder. She checks the promise, argues about your KEEP list and writes the offer page with you.

2. Play the startup game

The Fe/male Switch startup game turns the 30 days into quests: interviews, a landing page, a first sale, with a check at every step.

3. Start from a sharper idea

Find an angle with the startup ideas generator, test it with the idea validator, describe your buyer with the user persona generator and name it with the business name generator.

4. Measure what comes next

Once people pay and come back, the product market fit calculator runs the Sean Ellis 40% test. Curious how you handle a no? Take the entrepreneurial mindset test.

Minimum viable product FAQ

What is a minimum viable product?

A minimum viable product is the smallest version of a product that real customers can use, sign up for or pay for, built to learn whether they want it. Eric Ries defines it as the version that collects the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.

Who came up with the term minimum viable product?

Frank Robinson of SyncDev first used the term in 2001. Eric Ries made it popular through his blog in 2009 and his book The Lean Startup.

What is an example of a minimum viable product?

Dropbox's three-minute demo video took its beta waiting list from 5,000 to 75,000 people overnight. Zappos started in 1999 by photographing a local store's shoes and buying each ordered pair at full price.

What is the difference between a minimum viable product and a prototype?

A prototype shows how a product would look and work, and you test it in a session you run. A minimum viable product goes to real customers, who can sign up, pay or come back on their own, so it shows demand.

How long does it take to build a minimum viable product?

Most test types fit in 1 to 8 weeks, by the Real Startup Book's estimates. Buffer's founder built his first version in 7 weeks of evenings and weekends. The planner on this page fits one test into 30 days.

How much does a minimum viable product cost?

The Real Startup Book estimates $0 to $700 depending on the type, with a concierge test from $0 and a pre-sale up to $700. A landing page on Carrd starts at $9 per year, and Tally's free plan includes forms and payment collection.

What should a minimum viable product include?

Only the features needed to test your promise. Sort each feature into KEEP (needed for the test), LATER (not needed, small or medium effort) or DROP (not needed, large effort), and check that KEEP fits the hours you have.

Can I build a minimum viable product without coding?

Yes. A landing page smoke test, a concierge service, a Wizard of Oz test and a pre-sale all work with no-code tools or by hand. Food on the Table emailed meal plans by hand before it had any software.

What comes after a minimum viable product?

If the test passes, build the next item from your LATER list and measure whether people stay. When you have active users, check your progress with the product market fit calculator.