The journal
Notes on shipping fast.
What we’ve learned building MVPs in five days, repeatedly.
- Building· 7 min
I have an idea for an app but can't build it. What now?
The honest decision tree for non-technical founders: when to teach yourself, hire a freelancer, hire a CTO, use no-code, or pay a US-based productized service to ship the MVP for you.
- Stack choices· 6 min
US-based MVP development: why proximity still matters in 2026
Offshore got cheaper, AI made everyone look like they could ship. Here's why a US-based, single-accountable-person MVP service still wins for non-technical founders who care about quality.
- Launching· 7 min
How to validate a startup idea without burning runway
A practical playbook for first-time founders: the four cheap tests to run before you spend real money, and what to do once an idea survives all four.
- Building· 6 min
Why 5-day MVPs beat 12-week roadmaps
Speed isn't a feature, it's a survival mechanism. Here's the math, and why most agency timelines are doing your idea a quiet violence.
- Stack choices· 7 min
The exact stack we ship in 5 days (and why)
Next.js 16 on Cloudflare, Postgres via Drizzle, Stripe, Resend, PostHog, Better-Auth. Here's why each, and what we'd swap if we were starting over.
- Building· 8 min
MVP cost in 2026: what $2K, $25K, and $250K actually buy
A line-by-line look at three price points for getting a software MVP shipped, what's included, what's missing, and which one matches your problem.