How to Decide What Belongs in an MVP

When the HackTick PRD Generator asks what belongs in your MVP, do not answer with every feature you hope to build.

Answer with the smallest set of capabilities that lets your first user get one valuable result.

Use the three-question filter

Run each feature through these questions:

1. Does it help the target user complete the main workflow?
2. Do we need it to test the product’s main promise?
3. Can we launch without it for now?

If the answer to the first two is yes, include it. If you can launch without it, postpone it unless it is essential to the workflow.

For a simple booking tool, the result might be:

Include: a booking page, available time slots, confirmation email, and a basic calendar view.

Postpone: round-robin scheduling, team availability, payment collection, analytics, and calendar integrations beyond the one your first users need.

Be wary of “small” additions

Some requests look like one checkbox but create an entire system.

“Add team access” means invitations, roles, permissions, and what happens when someone leaves. “Add payments” means failure states, receipts, refunds, security, and support. “Add AI” means deciding where the output comes from, how it is reviewed, and what happens when it is wrong.

The HackTick answer does not need to solve all of that. It needs to state whether V1 needs it at all.

Write the answer like this

In V1, users can create a booking page, choose from available times, receive a confirmation, and view upcoming bookings. Do not include team scheduling, payment collection, SMS reminders, or advanced reporting yet.

That gives a coding agent a product boundary it can use.

Your MVP is a test, not a promise to everyone

The point is to learn. If users make bookings and come back, you have evidence to build on. If they do not, a larger feature list would not have fixed the core problem.

Keep the first scope clear enough that you can tell what users value. Then add the next piece because people need it, not because it appeared on a competitor’s pricing page.