Case study · Fintech · UK · anonymised
From 40-item wishlist to a funded MVP in six weeks
- 6 weeks
- from kickoff to first paying customer
- 73%
- of original wishlist scope cut before build
- 11 of 12
- pilot customers converted to paid
01
Context
A UK fintech with strong early traction in payments reconciliation had raised a bridge round to expand into a second product line. The founding team had a 40-item feature wishlist, three months of runway allocated, and no agreement on where to start.
02
The challenge
Every stakeholder had a different 'obvious' first build. Engineering estimates for the full wishlist ran past nine months, triple the allocated runway. The real problem wasn't prioritisation mechanics; it was that nobody had defined what the new product line had to prove to justify existing.
03
What we did
We ran a two-week discovery sprint against their existing customer base: twelve interviews with finance teams already using the core product. The pattern was blunt: customers didn't want most of the wishlist, but three interviewees independently described the same painful workaround for one specific workflow.
We rebuilt the scope around that single workflow: an MVP thesis ("finance teams will pay to eliminate this reconciliation step"), a feature set cut to eleven items, and specs with acceptance criteria the in-house team could start on immediately. Everything else went on an explicit 'not until the thesis is proven' list, signed by the founders.
“Tristan's superpower is making 'no' feel like progress. We shipped in six weeks what we'd budgeted five months for, and the cut features genuinely haven't been missed.”