The Prototype > MVP > Product Progression

Most founders conflate prototypes with MVPs. They’re not the same thing.

A prototype is a fake version of your product used to test assumptions. It doesn’t work. It’s not deployed. It’s a Figma file that looks real enough to get feedback.

An MVP is a real, working product with the minimum feature set needed to validate your core hypothesis. It’s live. Users can sign up. It probably has bugs.

A product is what you build after you’ve validated the MVP and learned what people actually want. This is the long game—continuous iteration based on real usage data.

The mistake: skipping straight from idea to MVP without prototyping. You burn months of dev time building something you could have invalidated in a week with a clickable Figma prototype.

Prototype fast. Build slow. Ship deliberately.