Four weeks sounds aggressive until you realize most AI MVPs are 80% the same: auth, billing, a chat or workflow UI, an LLM call with retrieval, and a dashboard. The other 20% is your actual idea — and that's where the time should go.
Week 1 — Lock the scope
- One core user, one core job, one success metric
- Cut every feature that isn't required for the first paying customer
- Pick the stack: Lovable / Next.js + Supabase + OpenAI or Anthropic
- Wireframe in Figma or directly in Lovable — don't over-design
Week 2 — Build the spine
- Auth, payments, database schema, base UI shell
- First end-to-end AI flow working with a stub UI
- Deploy to production on day 10, even if it's ugly
Week 3 — Make it real
- Polish the core flow: prompts, retrieval, error handling
- Add the second-most-important feature, nothing else
- Onboard 3–5 design partners and watch them use it live
Week 4 — Ship and charge
- Fix the top 5 bugs from design partners
- Turn on Stripe, send invoices, get the first dollar
- Set up basic analytics and a feedback loop for v2
What we never cut
Auth, payments, error monitoring, and a feedback channel. Everything else is negotiable in week one.