You’ve got an idea. You’ve got some budget. You’re ready to build.

Before you brief an agency, talk to a developer, or write a line of code, ask yourself these five questions. They’ll save you months and tens of thousands of pounds.

1. What’s the one thing this product must do?

Not the ten things. Not the roadmap. The one thing.

If your MVP tries to do everything, it’ll do nothing well. The most successful MVPs we’ve built have been ruthlessly focused on a single core job — the one thing that, if it works, proves the business model.

Everything else is version two.

If you can’t articulate the one thing in a single sentence, you’re not ready to build. And that’s fine — that’s what discovery is for.

2. How will you know it’s working?

Before you build anything, define what success looks like in numbers. Not “users like it” — that’s feelings. What specific, measurable outcome tells you this product is solving the problem?

Ten paying customers in the first month. A 50% reduction in support tickets. 200 daily active users. Pick a number. Write it down.

If you can’t define the success metric, you won’t know when you’ve succeeded — and you definitely won’t know when to pivot.

3. Who are your first ten users?

Not your market. Not your segment. Your actual first ten users — by name, ideally. Do you know ten people who have the problem you’re solving and would use your product tomorrow if it existed?

If you can’t name them, you might be building for a market that doesn’t exist. If you can name them, talk to them before you build. Their feedback will reshape your product in ways you can’t anticipate.

4. What are you not building?

The hardest part of an MVP is deciding what to leave out. For every feature you include, there should be three you’ve consciously excluded.

Make a “not building” list. Put it next to your feature list. Review both regularly. The “not building” list keeps you honest when scope creep starts whispering.

5. What happens if it works?

This sounds optimistic, but it’s a practical question. If your MVP succeeds — if you hit your success metric — what needs to happen next?

More users means more infrastructure. Paying customers means billing and support. Growth means hiring, or scaling your development partner. If you haven’t thought about what success requires, you’ll be scrambling when it arrives.

The best time to plan for success is before you build. Not after.

The Honest Answer

If you can answer all five questions clearly, you’re ready to build. If you can’t, don’t panic — you’re just not ready yet. Spend the time and money on getting these answers right, and the build will be faster, cheaper, and more likely to succeed.

That’s exactly what our Discovery Sprint is designed for.