What belongs in your first version? Less than you think.

The hard part of a first version is often deciding what to leave out.

You keep thinking of useful features. The AI can generate them quickly. Suddenly, a straightforward app has six dashboards, four user roles and a lot of unfinished journeys.

Write one sentence: “This app helps [person] do [job].” Use that sentence to judge every feature.

Keep one complete journey

For a booking app, the first journey could be viewing available times, choosing one and receiving confirmation. If payment is essential to that booking, include it. If it isn’t, don’t add payments just because other booking apps have them.

For a client portal, the first journey might be signing in, finding a project and seeing the next step.

A complete small journey is more useful than several half-working ones.

Make three lists

Essential now: without this, the main job cannot be done safely and reliably.

Useful later: it makes the experience better, but the core job still works without it.

Not for this app: interesting ideas that belong somewhere else.

Permissions, persistent saves and clear failure states are not decorative extras. If your main journey needs them, they belong in the first list.

Reduce the number of roles

Every extra role adds access rules and test cases. Add a role because a real person needs a distinct set of permissions, not because the dashboard feels more complete with one.

Describe who owns each record and who may read or change it.

Test what’s there

Use fresh accounts and realistic fictional information. Complete the main journey from beginning to end.

Ask another person to try it without coaching them through every click. Notice where they stop, misunderstand something or need information you haven’t shown.

Give later ideas somewhere to live

A backlog protects your ideas without making them launch requirements. Write the feature down, explain the problem it solves and return to it when someone actually needs it.

Review this app against its main job: [job for user]. Identify incomplete journeys, permissions issues and unnecessary steps. Suggest what to keep, hide or postpone for a first usable version. Explain the reasoning before changing code.