Updated 2026-08-30. Written by Christopher Gilliland, founder of ZynVoss LLC — Fort Pierce, FL.
Prototype
Learns UX and story. Often disposable. May use fake data.
MVP
Real users, real data, real deploy, real feedback loop. Ugly is OK; broken security is not.
FAQ
Can a prototype become an MVP?
Sometimes. Budget for a rewrite if foundations were fake.
Next steps
People mix these up and then pay twice
A prototype answers “does this story make sense?” An MVP answers “will a real user do a real job in this thing on a URL we control?” If you show investors a clickable Figma and call it an MVP, they will believe you until the first login breaks. If you build production auth, backups, and billing for a story you have not tested, you will throw money at the wrong product.
At ZynVoss LLC in Fort Pierce we will prototype on purpose when the question is UX: a service writer, a dispatcher, a clinic front desk. Fake data is fine. Disposable code is fine. What is not fine is pretending that prototype is ready for card numbers, HIPAA-adjacent notes, or fifty staff on Monday.
What a prototype should include
- The three screens people will touch a hundred times a day.
- The ugly exception (“the customer is also a vendor,” “Saturday rates”).
- A walkthrough with the actual operator, not only the owner.
- A written list of lies: fake totals, fake users, buttons that do not save.
When those lies would hurt someone, stop. Do not put Stripe on a prototype. Do not store real patient or student data. Do not put the prototype on a public domain that looks like the company if it will rot there for a year.
What an MVP must include
- Real accounts, password reset, and a way to disable a user.
- A database you can back up and restore. We have restored ours. You should too.
- The core loop that creates value in under ten minutes for one persona.
- Logs for “what happened to customer X.”
- HTTPS, backups, and a staging copy that is not someone’s laptop.
Ugly is allowed. Missing tenants, missing invoices, missing “who can see this” is not. See the SaaS MVP checklist if other companies will log in. Internal tools can skip billing. They cannot skip permissions.
The rewrite question
Sometimes a prototype becomes an MVP if the data model was honest. Often it does not. No-code and “we will harden it later” are how you get a second project you did not budget. Ask for a one-page foundation review: auth, tenancy, migrations, secrets, deploy. If those were fake, budget a rewrite and keep the prototype as a movie.
Typical v1 money for a focused web product is in the cost guide ($8k–$25k for a narrow tool; $50k–$200k+ for multi-tenant SaaS). Call (772) 971-4448 if you want that said against your actual screens.
Show this page to whoever said “we already have an MVP”
If there is no login, no backup, and no real user, it is a prototype. If there is a Figma and a pitch deck, it is a story. Ugly software with real invoices is an MVP. Pretty software with fake numbers is a liability. We will prototype on purpose. We will not take card numbers on a disposable build.
Rewrite budget: if auth, tenancy, and migrations were fake, keep the prototype as a movie and build the MVP next to it. Typical v1 money is in the cost guide. Call (772) 971-4448.