Many of the best practices we take for granted weren’t designed to help you build the best product. They were designed to avoid expensive mistakes.
MVPs exist because building software is expensive, and we want to validate demand before investing further. That single constraint shaped every aspect of yesterday’s product lifecycle: we avoided building for as long as possible, and when we did build, we built as little as we could get away with.
What this essay explores
- Understand why MVPs and staged artifacts were designed to avoid expensive software mistakes.
- Replace sequential handoffs with tighter loops around working prototypes and customer conversations.
- Start prototyping with the decision you are trying to make, not the artifact.
- Use prototypes to test flows, interactions, and intent before building the fully realized product.
- Build a team culture around AI prototyping without mistaking overreach for an operating model.
- Use working software to communicate, make decisions, and validate ideas throughout development.
When software is cheap to produce, prototypes become the new way to think.
Key takeaway
Writing software now costs less than writing about it — and that changes everything.
