What to build first, and what to leave out

The first version has one job: prove that someone will use it, and ideally pay for it.

Everything that doesn't help with that can wait.

For each feature on the list, I ask one question: does a customer need this to get the main thing done in their first week? If not, it waits.

What usually waits:

• Admin dashboards. Do it by hand at first.
• Roles and permissions beyond "admin" and "user."
• Settings pages.
• Integrations nobody has asked for yet.
• A mobile app, if the web version works on a phone.
• Anything described as "it would be nice if."

This is where founders who know their industry have the edge. You already know what the one thing is, because you've seen the problem for years. My job is to help you protect it from everything else on the list.