AFeaturePrioritizationFrameworkforCuttingMVPScope

Every feature should have to justify its place against one question: does this feature help test whether users actually want this product? If a feature is genuinely useful but doesn't help answer that specific question, it belongs in v2, not v1 — no matter how obviously valuable it seems in the abstract.

A simple three-bucket sort helps: features required to test the core hypothesis, features that would be nice but aren't required, and features that are really about a future vision rather than the immediate test. Only the first bucket belongs in your MVP.

"What if a user does X edge case" is a common trap — for an MVP testing a core hypothesis with a small number of early users, most edge cases can be handled manually or simply don't need to be handled at all yet. Admin dashboards, elaborate settings pages, and account management flows beyond the bare minimum are almost always premature for a true v1 — they matter once you have users to manage, not before.

"Competitors have this feature" is another trap — matching a competitor's full feature set isn't the goal of an MVP; testing your specific hypothesis is. You don't need feature parity with an established product to learn whether your core idea has legs.

Write your three-bucket list before your first developer conversation, and bring only the first bucket to scoping. This produces a tighter, more accurate quote and a faster path to something you can actually put in front of users — which is the entire point of building an MVP in the first place.