A 5-day MVP is an MVP built in five business days. The scope is fixed: marketing site, auth, dashboard, database, and one core feature flow. The price is fixed. The timeline is fixed. If the timeline slips, the deal doesn’t complete.
Why it matters
Five days is short enough to force scope discipline and long enough to ship something real. Anything shorter ships a prototype; anything longer reintroduces the problems agency timelines have (assumption decay, momentum loss, scope creep).
Common mistakes
- Treating it as a hackathon. A 5-day MVP is engineering with a deadline, not a one-week sprint without rest. Days 4 and 5 are polish, not panic.
- Adding "just one thing." Every added feature subtracts from polish on the existing scope. A great 5-day MVP is small and tight, not big and rough.