You’re building a SaaS product. You have a list of 47 features. You want to build all of them. Don’t.
The whole point of an MVP is to launch with the minimum set of features that lets you charge money and learn from real users. Everything else is a distraction.
Here’s what to build first — and what to save for later.
Must-Haves: Ship These on Day One
Authentication. Users need to sign up and log in. Use a service like Clerk, Auth0, or Supabase Auth. Don’t build your own. Seriously.
One core feature. Not three. Not five. One. The single thing your product does better than the alternatives. If you can’t identify it, you’re not ready to build yet. This feature should be so good that users will tolerate everything else being rough.
Payments. If you’re building a SaaS, you need to charge money. Stripe makes this straightforward. Set up a simple pricing page with one or two tiers. Don’t overthink it — you’ll change your pricing at least three times in the first year.
A basic dashboard. Users need somewhere to land after they log in. Show them the data and controls that matter most. Keep it simple. A clean dashboard with three key metrics beats a cluttered one with thirty.
Transactional email. Welcome emails, password resets, payment receipts. Use Resend, Postmark, or SendGrid. These are table stakes — users expect them.
Nice-to-Haves: Build These After You Have Paying Users
Admin panel. You’ll need one eventually, but early on you can manage everything through your database directly or a tool like Retool. Don’t spend two weeks building an admin panel when you have zero customers.
Advanced analytics. Plug in Mixpanel or PostHog on day one for your own insights, but don’t build analytics dashboards for your users yet. Wait until they ask for specific metrics.
Multi-tenancy and team features. Unless your product is specifically for teams, skip this. Build for individual users first. Team features add significant complexity — roles, permissions, invitations, billing per seat. Save it.
Mobile app. Build a responsive web app. If your users need mobile, a PWA gets you 80% of the way there. A native app can come later when you have demand and budget.
Integrations. Zapier and webhooks can bridge the gap. Don’t build native integrations until users are literally begging for them.
The Rule
If a feature doesn’t help you get your first 10 paying users, it can wait. That’s it. Every hour you spend on a nice-to-have is an hour you’re not spending on acquisition, onboarding, or improving your core feature.
Launch ugly. Launch fast. Fix it in public. Your first users won’t care about polish — they care about whether your product solves their problem.
Need help scoping your SaaS MVP? Talk to IN2Labs — we’ll help you figure out what to build first so you can launch faster.