I started telling founders their MVP has to ship in 30 days. Here’s what happened.

Most founders I talk to think building an MVP takes 6 months minimum. They plan for it, budget for it, and then wonder why they're still building a year later with nothing to show.

So I started doing something different. I tell every founder the same thing upfront: your MVP ships in 30 days or we're doing it wrong.

At first they push back. "There's no way we can build everything we need in 30 days." And that's exactly the point. You can't build everything. So you're forced to actually decide what matters.

The 30 day constraint does something that months of planning never does. It kills all the nice-to-have features immediately. Password reset? Gone. User profiles? Gone. Admin dashboards? Gone. Anything that doesn't directly prove the core value gets cut.

And the funny thing is the products that ship in 30 days are usually better than the ones that took 6 months. Because they're focused. They do one thing well instead of ten things poorly.

We've done this on maybe a dozen projects now and the pattern holds. The tighter the timeline the better the product. Constraints force clarity.

Anyone else use artificial deadlines like this? Curious what timelines other people are working with.