Ship Like a Baddie · Hackathon · Aug 16
MVP Worksheet
Scope one thing before you build anything. Fill this in, then field 4 becomes your first prompt in Sprint #2.
Gate 1Hit Copy for Gate 1, then paste it in the main room chat.
A fully worked example: Maya
This is the level of detail.
Maya’s answers sit beside each field so you can see how specific to be. This worksheet is your build spec, so be specific.
| 1Your user | Teen artists, 15 to 22, selling handmade work locally. No budget, shy to cold-DM. |
|---|---|
| 2Their journey | Finish art → want to show it locally → don’t know who to ask → no easy way to be contacted → art piles up. |
| 3The step that hurts most | No simple way to show her work, be reached, and find safe local places that exhibit art. |
| 4Your MVP | A one-page art profile that showcases her work, lets people contact her, and lists safe local places that show art (schools, teachers, community spaces, companies). |
| 5How you’ll test it | Maya’s art teacher and two friends who draw, plus one local cafe her family knows. |
| Value proposition | WHO: teen artists selling locally. WHAT: reach local buyers without cold-DMing. THE JOB: get my art in front of places that show local work, so it actually sells. |
Part 1 · The five fields
Who it is for, and what hurts.
Solo and quiet. One person, specific enough to picture. Not a market, not a segment.
The specific person you named, and the wider pattern of people behind them.
Maya’s exampleTeen artists, 15 to 22, selling handmade work locally. No budget, shy to cold-DM.
The five rough steps your user takes around the problem, start to finish.
Maya’s exampleFinish art → want to show it locally → don’t know who to ask → no easy way to be contacted → art piles up.
The single moment in that journey you’ll solve first. Pick one.
Maya’s exampleNo simple way to show her work, be reached, and find safe local places that exhibit art.
The smallest thing you can build that fixes just that step. Keep it tiny.
Maya’s exampleA one-page art profile that showcases her work, lets people contact her, and lists safe local places that show art (schools, teachers, community spaces, companies).
One real person you can reach, through someone you know.
Maya’s exampleMaya’s art teacher and two friends who draw, plus one local cafe her family knows.
Part 2 · From MVP to a build list
Turn your MVP into a backlog.
A backlog is just your build list, in order. The trick is to find the ONE action your product does for your user, then rank everything else by how close it sits to that action. Build the action first. Everything else is support.
Finish this sentence with a VERB, not a thing. If you wrote a noun (a profile, an app, a page), you named an object, not the job. Try again until it is something the product DOES.
Maya’s one actionSend a ready-to-go pitch to a local venue, with her art attached and profile linked, without writing it from scratch.
My product lets my user
List every feature you can think of, then drop each one into a tier. If you are not sure, ask: would the one action still work without it? If yes, it is not Tier 1.
Tier 1 · Needed for the action
MayaThe list of places to contact. The editable message. A send confirmation. Her art to attach. Her profile link.
Tier 2 · Supporting cast
MayaLogin. Seeing replies. A guardian on file. Editing her profile. A share link.
Tier 3 · Later / v2
MayaReal email sending. Live replies. Notifications. Search. Uploading real art.
Rule of thumb: build Tier 1 first and only Tier 1. That is your real MVP. Tiers 2 and 3 are your roadmap, not your first build.
Here is Maya’s MVP, built from this worksheet: open the prototype
Part 3 · Value proposition
One more thing: your value proposition.
Write it in three lines, so anyone gets it in 30 seconds. Then compress it into one sentence. That sentence is half of Gate 1 and the first line of your prompt in Sprint #2.
Compress the three above into one sentence.