MVP as Research

In the AI era, how should we ship a product?

Traditionally, when we want to build something, we start with user research. Then we write the requirements, draft the idea, do the design, develop it, test it, and finally release it. That was how big tech worked. And it made sense at that time, because the cost of development was high. If a product direction was wrong, the cost was serious. You couldn't really afford to be wrong.

But now I increasingly feel that for normal people, especially people who can use Claude Code and do vibe coding, this process is just too slow. At least fifty times too slow.

So what is the better way? I think it is: MVP as research.

Don't think too much at the beginning. Just build the thing you want to build. Build the ugliest version. Or build a version where you can at least look at it and say, "Okay, I understand what this thing is."

Because if you want to build it, that already means it is attractive to you. You want to use it, or you believe it might be useful. That is enough. Just build it.

Some of my friends always say, "What if I build this thing and someone has already done it?" Or, "What if I build this and someone comes after me? What if I get into legal trouble?"

And I usually say: after you build it, if someone really comes after you, then hire the best lawyer and fight the case. But if you don't even have the money to hire the best lawyer, why would they come after you in the first place?

A lot of the time, we are not blocked by reality. We are blocked by tiny-probability events inside our own head.

For example, I built Raily Friend in maybe two hours. I built CV.PRO in three or four hours. Raily took a little longer because it is an app, maybe a few days. But even so, compared with the traditional product development process, this speed is fucking insane.

I saw one data point before: Flighty spent about two years in beta, from 2019 to 2021. And I basically replicated the core feeling of it in around twenty days. This is AI coding. This is the AI era.

So I think the new process should not be: research first, then development. It should be: develop first, then use the launch itself as research. That is MVP as research.

You build the thing first, then post it on WeChat Moments. Because people in your Moments know you. They have some relationship with you. Many of them live in a similar environment, share similar interests, or have a similar mindset. So when you publish it, someone will jump out.

Some people will say, "This is wrong." Some people will say, "This is pretty good." Some people will give you suggestions. Some people will directly say, "Fuck it, I want to use this." Anyway, all of these are signals.

And the most important thing is: if you do user research first, you don't even know who you should research with. You don't know which motherfucker in your Moments is actually interested in your thing. But when you drop a real product out there, the interested people naturally come out.

At that moment, you can pull them in. Let them become your early users. Let them give you advice. Let them analyze it. Let them talk shit about it. Let them tell you why it sucks. That is much better than sitting there and imagining user needs by yourself.

And another thing I think is very important: don't make the product too perfect at the beginning. I know a lot of people talk about this, but I mean it in a very practical way.

You can build the product to 40 points, then package it like it is 60 points. If someone uses it, if someone complains about it, then you can hire another person, or hire an agent, or invest more time and money to push it to 80 points.

I once built a tool that could import my school timetable into iCloud Calendar. At the beginning, it was extremely simple. You had to run it with Python. That means if you didn't know Python, you basically couldn't use it. It was just a CLI.

But somehow, a few people were actually using it. And even more surprisingly, someone submitted a PR. That was the signal.

So I kept going. I reverse-engineered the school login system so students could log in directly with their student account and password. Then I posted it on the school forum. After that, hundreds, even thousands of students started using it.

So my understanding is simple: you should first drop the food on the ground and see if anyone eats it. If someone is willing to eat it even when it is on the ground, then you can give them a plate.