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Last month, I had an idea on Friday night. By Sunday evening, I had a working product with its first paying customer. I want to build a Saas MVP from start to finish.

I’m not saying this to brag. I’m saying it because a year ago, this would have been impossible for me. Building a SaaS product used to mean months of development. Now? 48 hours and some focused effort.

The difference isn’t talent or working insane hours. It’s having a system. A repeatable process that lets you go from “I have an idea” to “people can pay me money” as fast as possible.

Here’s exactly how I would build a Saas MVP.

Before the Weekend: The Prep That Makes it Possible to Build a SaaS MVP

Weekend builds don’t actually start on Saturday morning. They start with preparation during the week before. Skip this, and you’ll waste half your weekend making decisions you should have made earlier.

Have a Validated Problem (Not Just an Idea)

This is where most people fail before they even start. They have a cool idea, but they have no evidence that anyone actually needs it.

Before your build weekend, you should be able to answer these questions:

1. Who specifically has this problem? (Not “developers” — more like “freelance developers who need to track time across multiple clients”)
2. How are they solving it now? (If no one’s trying to solve it, maybe it’s not a real problem)
3. Why would they pay for your solution? (What’s better about it?)
4. How will you reach them? (No customers without distribution)

You don’t need perfect answers. But if you can’t answer these at all, you’re building blindly.

Scope Ruthlessly (Then Cut Some More)

Here’s the trap: you imagine all the features your product could have, and you try to build all of them.

Don’t. Your MVP should do one thing. Maybe two. The goal isn’t to build a complete product—it’s to build enough to validate that people want this thing. When you build a SaaS MVP you should get one or two things that work perfectly.

My process: Write down every feature you’re imagining. Now cross out 80% of them. The remaining 20%? Probably still too much. What’s the single core feature that delivers value? Build only that.

The Tech Stack That Lets You Ship Fast

Your technology choices dramatically impact how fast you can move. You can use Claude or Copilot to build a SaaS MVP. You will find my full article on an analysis of the best suited AI tool for you here. Here’s what I use and why:

Frontend: Next.js + Tailwind + shadcn/ui

Next.js handles routing, API routes, and server-side rendering out of the box. No configuring build tools. No setting up a separate backend. Just start building.

Tailwind eliminates the CSS context-switching that slows down development. shadcn/ui gives you beautiful, accessible components you can copy-paste. Together, they let you build professional-looking UIs without design skills.

Backend: Supabase

Supabase is PostgreSQL with superpowers. You get a database, authentication, real-time subscriptions, and file storage—all ready to use in minutes. I’ve tried building these things myself. Trust me, you don’t want to.

Authentication: Clerk or Supabase Auth

Never, ever build authentication yourself for a weekend project. Use Clerk for beautiful drop-in components, or use Supabase Auth if you’re already using Supabase. Both work great.

Payments: Stripe

Stripe Checkout lets you accept payments with minimal code. Don’t build custom payment forms for an MVP. Just use Stripe’s hosted checkout and move on.

Deployment: Vercel

Push to GitHub, your site deploys. That’s it. Vercel’s free tier is generous enough for MVP testing, and you can scale later if needed.

The Weekend Timeline (What Actually Happens)

Here’s how I structure a build weekend, assuming roughly 16-18 hours of work across Saturday and Sunday:

Saturday Morning (4 hours): Foundation

Hour 1: Project setup. Create the Next.js app, configure Tailwind, add shadcn/ui, connect Supabase, set up authentication. Deploy the empty project to Vercel to confirm everything works.

Hours 2-4: Data model and basic API. Define your database schema in Supabase. Create the tables. Write the API routes for CRUD operations. This is the boring stuff that makes everything else possible.

Saturday Afternoon (4 hours): Core Feature

This is where you build the main thing your product does. The feature that delivers actual value. Stay focused—it’s easy to get distracted by edge cases and nice-to-haves.

Use AI heavily here. Describe what you’re building to Claude or Cursor and let them help with implementation. Don’t stop to make everything perfect. Working code that can be improved beats perfect code that doesn’t exist.

Saturday Evening (2 hours): Connect the Pieces

Build the user flow. Make sure someone can sign up, use the core feature, and understand what’s happening. Add navigation. Fix the obvious UX issues.

Don’t aim for beautiful. Aim for clear and functional.

Sunday Morning (4 hours): Polish and Payments

Hours 1-2: Landing page. Explain what your product does, who it’s for, and why they should care. Include pricing. Add a clear call to action.

Hours 3-4: Stripe integration. Even if you’re launching free, having payment infrastructure ready signals seriousness and lets you monetize immediately if there’s interest.

Sunday Afternoon (4 hours): Test and Launch

Hours 1-2: Test the complete user journey. Sign up with a new email, use the product, test payment. Fix critical bugs. Ignore minor issues that don’t block the core experience.

Hours 3-4: Launch. Post on Twitter. Share in relevant communities. Submit to Product Hunt or other directories. The worst thing you can do is keep polishing instead of shipping.

The Decisions That Make Weekend Builds Possible

Speed isn’t about typing faster. It’s about making different decisions:

Accept temporary limitations. Your MVP doesn’t need to handle every edge case. It needs to work for the happy path. You’ll fix the edge cases when real users actually encounter them.

Use services instead of building. Auth, payments, email, storage—use services for all of these. The cost is trivial compared to the time you’d spend building them.

Skip the admin panel. You don’t need a fancy dashboard at launch. Use database tools directly. Build admin features when manual approaches become painful.

Trust AI assistance. Let AI handle boilerplate and suggest implementations. You’re the architect and reviewer—the AI is your tireless assistant.

After the Weekend: What Comes Next

Launching isn’t the end—it’s the beginning of learning.

Watch how people use your product. Talk to early users. Pay attention to where they get confused or what features they ask for.

Some weekend MVPs fail to gain traction. That’s valuable information—you learned what doesn’t work in a weekend instead of months. Once you build a SaaS MVP and if it does not work out, move on to the next idea.

Others show promising signals. Users engage, ask for features, or even pay. These are the projects worth investing more time in.

Your Weekend Starts Now

I’ve built several products this way now. Not all of them succeeded. But I learned more from launching imperfect products than I ever learned from planning perfect ones.

The tools are available. The approach is proven. The only variable is whether you’ll actually do it.

Pick an idea. Scope it down. Block out next weekend. And build a SaaS MVP.