How to Build an MVP for Your SaaS (And ship it ASAP)

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If you’re trying to figure out how to build an MVP for your SaaS, stop looking for clean templates and pretty diagrams.

The real process is messier, faster, and way more opinionated than most guides will admit.

Here’s what actually works — not what looks good on LinkedIn.

Start With the Pain, Not the Product

Most founders screw up because they start with an “idea” instead of a very real, very annoying problem.

Your MVP isn’t a product. It’s a weaponized guess about one pain point — and whether people will pay to make it go away.

If you don’t know exactly who’s suffering and what they’re willing to do to fix it, you’re just building a feature graveyard.

What Your MVP Actually Needs

When figuring out how to build an MVP for your SaaS, you don’t need:

A full dashboard
Onboarding flows
Billing integrations
Fancy UI

You need:

One page
One action
One value payoff

Think: a working demo, a Notion page with a Stripe link, a single-use web app, even a Google Form behind a landing page. If it solves something and someone uses it? You’re in business.

Ship It Ugly, Then Knock on Doors

No one cares how it looks. They care if it works. The moment your MVP barely functions, start sharing it with:

Friends in the space
Twitter/Bluesky/Reddit communities
Discords with your ideal users
Cold DMs (be human, not pitchy)

You’ll get more clarity in 10 user convos than in 10 weeks of coding.

If you’re serious about learning how to build an MVP for your SaaS, skip the Product Hunt post and talk to someone who’s already paying for a worse version of your thing.

What You’ll Learn (That You Didn’t Expect)

Nobody uses the thing you thought was your main feature
The copy is confusing
Your pricing is wrong
Users care more about speed or simplicity than you realized
They want it on mobile. Or email. Or Excel. Not the shiny stack you picked.

Your MVP isn’t about validating the product. It’s about invalidating your assumptions — fast.

What to Do Next (Once You Know It Works)

If 10 people are using your MVP and 3 are nagging you for fixes — that’s traction. Now:

Rebuild only the parts they’re using
Add whatever blockers are killing retention
Turn your first users into referrals or testimonials
Start charging (even if it’s low) to test value perception
Write about what you learned — content is leverage

How to build an MVP for your SaaS isn’t a one-off step. It’s a mindset. Build to learn. Learn to iterate. Repeat until you run out of mistakes.

Don’t overthink your SaaS MVP. And definitely don’t fall into the “MVP = shitty version of the final product” trap. It’s not a prototype — it’s a probe into the market.

If it doesn’t work, that’s not failure — that’s feedback.
If it does? Don’t polish it. Just sell it.

That’s how to build an MVP for your SaaS like someone who actually wants to get to revenue.