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Michael Seibel: Your MVP Should Take Weeks, Not Months

By Michael Seibel · Product & Building · 1 min read

Airbnb had no payments. Twitch had one channel. Stripe installed itself for you. All became billion-dollar companies.

Key Points

Build your MVP in weeks, not months. It's just a starting point.
Condense to only the most critical features for your initial users
Airbnb, Twitch, and Stripe all launched with embarrassingly simple products

Your MVP is not special. It's just a base to iterate from. That's it.

Weeks. Not Months.

Seibel: In most cases, you should be building a very lean MVP. You should be able to build it fast — in weeks, not months. A landing page and a spreadsheet works.

Most founders try to solve every problem for every user. Wrong. Pick a small group. Solve their biggest problem. Ignore everything else.

You should be able to build it fast — in weeks, not months. A landing page and a spreadsheet works.

Airbnb Had No Payments

The first version of Airbnb had no payment system. You found a place and exchanged money with the host in person. No map view either.

The sole engineer, Nate, was working part-time. Everyone tells magical stories about how everything was perfect from the beginning. Airbnb was not perfect from the beginning.

No payments. No map. One part-time engineer. That was Airbnb.

Twitch Was One Guy's Life on Camera

Twitch launched as Justin.tv. One channel. One person. Justin. If you didn't like watching his life, you had to leave the website.

The video was low resolution. There were no video games. The world's biggest gaming platform started with zero games.

Twitch started with zero games and one channel.

Stripe Installed Itself for You

Stripe started as /dev/payments. No bank deals. Almost no features. If you wanted to use Stripe, the founders showed up at your office and integrated it themselves.

Half because they were desperate for users. Half because it was a great way to find bugs.

The Stripe founders came to your office and installed it themselves.

Your MVP Is Not Special

Seibel: Your MVP is not special in any way. You just have to start. It's just a base to iterate from. That's it.

These are three examples of extremely simple, extremely fast to build MVPs. All billion-dollar companies. They all started with something that most people would say is pretty shitty.

All billion-dollar companies. They all started with something most people would say is pretty shitty.