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MVP ≠ Prototype – Why “Good Enough” Still Needs a Foundation

  • Writer: Brainz Magazine
    Brainz Magazine
  • Aug 4
  • 8 min read

Alberto Zuin is a CTO/CIO and the founder of MOYD, helping startup teams master their tech domain. With 25+ years of leadership in software and digital strategy, he blends enterprise architecture, cybersecurity, and AI know-how to guide fast-growing companies.

Executive Contributor Alberto Zuin

There’s a dangerous myth running through startup culture: that a minimum viable product (MVP) is just a rough prototype, something you’ll toss once you get “real” traction. Move fast, break things, and fix it later. Right? If you’re nodding along, stop.


Three people working on computers in an office with brick walls. One woman types, another points at a screen, a man stands in the background.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: your MVP will outlive its welcome. The code, architecture, and technical decisions you make in those first weeks will haunt you for years if you get traction, and not in a good way. “Good enough” is not the same as “built to be thrown away.” It still needs a foundation.


Let’s cut through the usual platitudes and startup folklore. Here’s what founders and CTOs need to know if they want to avoid the fate of so many promising products that hit a wall, not because the market didn’t want them, but because the foundation was built on sand.


The fatal misunderstanding: MVP as a disposable prototype


The MVP is not a prototype, and the consequences of treating it like one are severe.


Yes, the startup world worships speed. We idolise founders who “hack things together” in a weekend and go live by Monday. But there’s a difference between being lean and being reckless.


Where does this confusion come from? Partly from misunderstanding what each stage is for:


  • Prototype: Used to test out design or usability. Think Figma mockups, clickable demos, or even sketches. Nobody expects this to survive contact with the real world.

  • Proof of Concept (PoC): A technical spike to see if something is possible: “Can we integrate with X API?” Usually hacky, always disposable.

  • MVP: A functioning product, solving a real user problem, shipped to real users. It might be ugly, limited, or fragile, but it’s live, and it’s the seed of everything that comes next.


But here’s what the “fail fast” crowd never mentions:


Most MVPs don’t get rewritten. They become the first real version, and the next, and the one after that.


Twitter is a famous cautionary tale. Their initial “throwaway” Ruby-on-Rails app, meant just to prove the concept, ended up underpinning the site for years. The infamous “fail whale” downtime wasn’t just about sudden user growth; it was about building on a foundation that was never meant to last. Rewriting was discussed for years but always delayed, because the business couldn’t stop shipping new features or pause user growth for a month-long rebuild.


This is not an isolated story. A 2022 study of 22,183 DevPost hackathon projects found that only ~9% of the code was newly written during the events. However, a third of that new code was later reused in other projects, highlighting how throwaway MVP or hackathon code can infiltrate long-term codebases. YC alumni swap horror stories of “weekend MVPs” that became decade-old codebases. The myth that you’ll throw it all away “after traction” is just that: a myth. Investors expect velocity, customers expect uptime, and you’re not going to get a clean slate unless your business is in flames.


Why your MVP will outlive its welcome


Let’s be blunt: MVP code almost always sticks around.


Why? Because rewrites are expensive, distract from growth, and require business justification that rarely arrives. The market never “pauses,” so you can refactor. As soon as you have customers, every engineer-hour spent rewriting is an hour not spent shipping something users (or investors) care about.


This isn’t just anecdotal. Airbnb’s core stack, Rails and a pile of scrappy, hand-edited AWS scripts, survived well into unicorn territory, long after everyone agreed it was “due for a rewrite.”


Stripe’s Developer Coefficient report found that developers spend up to 13.5 hours per week addressing technical debt and maintenance, resulting in an estimated annual cost of $85 billion to the global economy. Most of that debt is not from grand, ambitious projects; it’s from MVPs that “just shipped” and never got the promised refactor.


Ultimately, your MVP becomes the “forever codebase” unless you’re willing to risk stalling user growth and revenue. Most founders aren’t.


Designing for unknowns: Robustness without overkill


Here’s where common sense gets lost. You don’t need to gold-plate your MVP, but you also can’t afford cowboy coding that leaves you with an unmaintainable mess.


So, what does a “just enough” foundation look like?


  • Clear separation of concerns: Even if it’s a monolith, don’t dump all logic into one file or function.

  • Loose coupling: If you expect the payment logic or messaging to change, keep it isolated.

  • Naming matters: Future you, or your first hire, needs to make sense of this in three months.

  • Minimal documentation: A README and a “decisions.md” are enough. What did you skip? Why? How should someone new get it running?

  • Use boring tools: Now is not the time for trendy frameworks or home-grown solutions. Use what is well-supported and well-understood.


You don’t need a microservices architecture, but you do need modularity. And you absolutely must avoid the “we’ll fix it later” justification for every shortcut. If a new engineer can’t get productive with a README and 30 minutes, your MVP is a liability, not an asset.


How to stay lean without digging a hole


Constraints are real: budget, time, and expertise are always limited. That doesn’t mean you can’t be disciplined.


Non-negotiables every MVP needs:


  • Version control. It’s 2025. There’s no excuse.

  • Basic test coverage. Even a smoke test on critical flows.

  • README and “decisions.md.” One hour now saves days later.

  • Source-controlled configuration. Hardcoded secrets and credentials are a disaster waiting to happen.

  • Modular structure. No, you don’t need “clean architecture,” but don’t mix data, business logic, and presentation into a soup.


Where can you cut corners?


Everywhere else, as long as you know where the corners are.

Skip the advanced CI/CD, fancy monitoring, or comprehensive testing for now. But track those as known gaps. When you’re building a house, it’s okay if the paint isn’t dry, but you can’t forget to pour the foundation.


A 2021 GitHub survey found that projects with strong documentation experienced up to 50% higher productivity among both open-source and enterprise contributors. Why? Because the cost of onboarding and context-switching explodes without documentation and clarity. The same logic applies to your MVP.


Harden the core, skip the edge:


  • Focus on the user journey that proves your value.

  • Leave advanced features, notifications, analytics, and “nice-to-haves” for later.

  • Harden anything that, if it breaks, will kill user trust or cause data loss.


The true cost of “we’ll fix it later”


Let’s get specific about why “we’ll fix it later” almost always means “we’ll pay for it forever.”


  • Learning slows down: Sloppy code = more bugs, harder changes, lost momentum. As Martin Fowler, a leading authority on software architecture, points out, the true cost of poor quality isn’t just technical, it’s economic. His analysis reveals that even modest investments in software quality at the MVP stage yield significant benefits, including reduced future maintenance costs, faster pivots, and improved overall business outcomes.

  • Onboarding pain: New engineers take weeks instead of days to ramp up, and the founders become bottlenecks.

  • Technical debt eats budgets: A McKinsey report estimates tech debt absorbs 10 to 20 percent of new feature budgets and up to 75 percent of engineering time if left unchecked. As Cunningham warned decades ago, technical debt accumulates silently until teams find themselves spending more time paying back old shortcuts than building new value.

  • You lose opportunities: Potential acquirers, partners, or even customers sniff out a fragile foundation, and trust evaporates.


The hidden impact is on your ability to learn, the only thing that matters at the MVP stage. If your team is afraid to touch code, or if every small change requires a “treasure hunt” through spaghetti, your ability to experiment and respond to users vanishes.


Is it ever safe to cut corners? Yes, but only if you know exactly what you’re deferring and document it clearly. Leave real breadcrumbs for yourself and the next person.


When and how to level up: Recognising the inflexion point


Most startups miss the signals that it’s time to invest in the foundation until it’s too late.

Here are the triggers you can’t afford to ignore:


  • First paying customers: If user data matters, so does basic reliability.

  • Compliance triggers: Collecting PII, processing payments, or operating in regulated sectors? Now is the time to shore up security and data integrity.

  • External scrutiny: Investors, partners, or potential acquirers ask for technical due diligence. Don’t give them a reason to say “no.”


When these happen, pause new features and refactor the core. Don’t try to fix everything, just the parts that are now critical to your business. Bring in help if needed.


Document every intentional shortcut so you can explain your decisions clearly and effectively under pressure.


Actionable checklist: Foundations every MVP needs (but no more)


Let’s make this painfully practical. If you’re building an MVP and you don’t have the following, you’re not “lean,” you’re reckless.


  • Version control (e.g., Git).

  • A README with setup, basic instructions, and key decisions.

  • Automated backups for any persistent data, tested at least once.

  • Basic error handling: fail gracefully, log errors.

  • Clear boundaries between “experiment” code and “core” product logic.

  • Simple deployment (a script or basic CI/CD is enough).

  • Use trusted libraries for authentication, payments, and security, not custom code.

  • A tracked list of deferred tasks, tech debt, and shortcuts.


What can genuinely wait:


  • Comprehensive tests and monitoring.

  • Fancy infrastructure or cloud architecture.

  • 100% documentation or polished onboarding flows.


Remember, an MVP that’s “good enough” is only viable if it can survive real users, handoff to a new team member, and handle at least one disaster without causing significant issues.


Closing thoughts: Don’t be a statistic


Here’s the reality: startups rarely fail because they picked the “wrong backend” or didn’t use the latest hot framework. They fail because they built in the wrong direction for too long, or because their “good enough” MVP was one incident away from disaster.


If your MVP can’t be understood, maintained, or adapted by someone new, it’s not “viable,” it’s a ticking time bomb.


You don’t need to over-engineer. But you do need a foundation, or you’re not building an MVP, you’re building a prototype with lipstick.


The startup graveyard is full of teams who thought they’d “fix it later.”


Don’t join them.


Follow me on LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info!

Read more from Alberto Zuin

Alberto Zuin, CTO/CIO

Alberto Zuin is a fractional CTO/CIO and the founder of MOYD, Master of Your (Tech) Domain. With over 25 years of experience in tech leadership, he helps startups and scaleups align their technology with business strategy. His background spans enterprise architecture, cybersecurity, AI, and agile delivery. Alberto holds an MBA in Technology Management and several top-tier certifications, including CGEIT and CISM. Passionate about mentoring founders, he focuses on helping teams build secure, scalable, and purpose-driven digital products.

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