Let me tell you about the first “MVP” I ever worked on.
We didn’t build anything. Literally nothing.
We had a landing page, a logo, and a notion board full of words like “synergy” and “automated magic.” There was a “Sign up” button that went nowhere. Our backend was a Google Form. Our frontend was vibes.
But we pitched it like it was real. We demoed it in Figma, walked people through screens as if things were clicking and loading and syncing. We nodded a lot. Said things like “the beta’s going live soon” while silently praying no one asked for a link.
And the worst part? Everyone nodded back.
Investors smiled. Mentors said “you’re onto something.” A few users even gave us their email addresses. I started to believe it myself.
That’s the thing. You do it once, and suddenly you’re in this weird loop where pretending becomes the actual product.
You’re not building — you’re maintaining an illusion.
I’ve seen startups raise money on a deck full of lies. I’ve seen founders pitch “user traction” that’s just ten of their friends in a WhatsApp group. I’ve seen engineers spend weeks designing a dashboard that doesn’t connect to anything — just so it looks like a real SaaS.
It’s not MVP anymore. It’s M.V.P.
Minimum. Viable. Pretending.
It sounds smart, though. “We’re testing demand.”
No, bro, you’re testing your acting skills.
Don’t get me wrong — I get the hustle. I’ve done it too. Sometimes you need to fake it a little to see if it’s even worth making.
But there’s a line.
And when you’ve been faking it for six months and still haven’t written a single line of working code, you’re not prototyping.
You’re performing.
The truth is: a real MVP can be ugly, clunky, slow, confusing. But it has to do something. Anything. A button that works. A flow that’s real. One user who actually gets value without you standing behind them explaining every step.
Because one day, someone will click. Someone will say, “cool, let me try it.” And if what you hand them is a high-fidelity hallucination? They’ll remember that. People forgive rough. They don’t forgive fake.
So yeah — build ugly. Build small. Build broken, even.
But for the love of product, build real.