Over the past five years, I’ve worked on designing MVPs, consulted and observed many people on their MVP journeys. What I see again and again is founders not thinking through their idea enough before jumping straight into implementation. This hands-on, action-driven approach can be great — it helps them move fast and bring ideas to life. However, it’s often not enough.

By doing this, they run into the same mistakes over and over again and don’t know how to move past them. They quickly realize they don’t have the time, knowledge, or direction to properly validate their product. They search for a structured approach — only to say, “I wish I had known this earlier” when they finally get out of chaos.

To help new founders avoid these words, I’ve gathered insights from my own experience and colleagues across different product roles. Here are five main don’ts that can save time and money while building an MVP.

Don’t be reluctant to niche down

One of the biggest mistakes I see founders make is coming to me excited, saying, “I have 5 different audiences I want to serve with this product!” But the main issue is that when you try to solve a problem for everyone, you often end up solving it superficially — because not many people share the exact same problem in the same way.

My colleague Serhii Mariekha, who helps founders generate ideas and build MVPs from a technical standpoint, recommends looking for a micro-niche with SEO tools. He believes in starting with your own problem and then checking if others share it. Here’s how he does it:

“When you already have hypothetical pain points, you can check if others share the same problems. SEO tools like Ahrefs can help you find the right keywords and identify those pains.

Type in the keywords that are associated with your product idea. You’ll see that some keywords are highly competitive, so probably you won’t be able to succeed with that idea.”

“Instead, look for a micro-niche you can dominate — something like Canva did early on. They created simple tools for small problems, like resizing images, and linked back to their main product. This allowed them to build an audience and scale. I use the same approach when exploring new ideas”, says Serhii.

Don’t make it perfect

This may seem counterintuitive, especially after mentioning that many founders jump into building their ideas without validating them first. But I didn’t mean you should avoid taking action, rather — avoid taking unnecessary action. Many founders want to start making money right away, which is totally valid; after all, businesses are meant to make money. However, with startups, sometimes you need to give things time to develop.