What Features to Include in Your MVP (And What to Cut)

The One-Action Test

Your MVP should let a user complete exactly one core action that creates value for them. For Airbnb: book a room. For Uber: request a ride. For Slack: send a message to a team. Write it in one sentence: 'A [user] can [action] and receive [outcome].' If you need more than one sentence to describe your MVP's core value, you have scope creep. Everything in your MVP should serve this one sentence. Everything else is v2.

Must Have (Core Action)

Features that are required for the core action to work at all. Without these, the product doesn't exist. For a marketplace: listing creation, search/discovery, and checkout. For a SaaS tool: the primary feature, user accounts, and billing. For a booking app: calendar availability and booking confirmation. The must-haves are usually 3–5 features. If you have 10+ 'must-haves,' you're rationalizing scope creep.

• The feature that delivers the core value proposition
• Authentication (if users need accounts for the core action)
• Payment processing (if the business model requires it on day one)
• Basic error states and empty states (ship without these and users churn immediately)

Should Have (But Not in Week 1)

Features that improve the product but aren't required for the first users. Social login (email + password is fine for MVP), notifications (email works before push), admin dashboard (use your database UI initially), analytics dashboard (use Mixpanel free tier), and search (a list with filters is sufficient for <1,000 items). These go in week 2 or v1.1 after you've validated the core.

Classic Scope Creep to Cut Immediately

These features appear in almost every MVP brief and almost never belong in v1: (1) In-app messaging — if your core product doesn't require real-time communication, defer it. (2) Social features (follow, feed, likes) — unless social IS the product. (3) Mobile app for a B2B SaaS — web is fine for v1 if your users are on desktop. (4) Multi-language/localization — launch in one language. (5) Dark mode — no one churns because there's no dark mode in an MVP. (6) Offline mode — only necessary for specific use cases. (7) API access for users — this is a v2 enterprise feature.

• In-app messaging: use email or a Slack integration for v1
• Social features: only if social IS the core product
• Mobile app: web-first unless the core action is inherently mobile
• Multi-language: one language, one country, validate first
• Admin dashboard: your Supabase table editor works fine for the first 100 users

The Scope Discipline Mindset

Every feature you add to an MVP doubles the risk of not shipping. Features have a multiplicative effect on complexity — adding feature B doesn't just add its own development time, it adds the integration time with feature A and all the edge cases where A and B interact. The best founders we've worked with treat scope as a budget they're protecting, not a wishlist they're growing. When a new feature idea appears, the question isn't 'should we add this?' but 'what does this replace?'