01
Shape the idea
Turning a broad ambition into a specific, testable first version. This usually means cutting more than you expect.
What you need
An idea is not a product yet.
The riskiest thing you can do with a new idea is build all of it. We help you find the smallest version that proves whether the idea works, put it in front of real people, and expand only the parts that earn it.
Why it matters
The short version.
The dangerous thing about a new product idea is that it feels most certain at the point when you know least about it. Confidence is highest before contact with users, and every subsequent piece of evidence complicates it. Building the full thing while that confidence is at its peak is how most of the money gets wasted.
The alternative is not to build less ambitiously — it is to build in an order that produces evidence early. Find the one assumption that everything else depends on, build the smallest thing that tests it, and put that in front of someone who has the problem. What you learn will change the plan, which is the point.
Scope discipline is the main lever, and it is genuinely hard because every cut feels like a compromise. It is worth saying plainly: a first version that does one thing properly beats one that does six things adequately, both for users and for whatever you need to show a board or an investor.
Confidence is highest before contact with users. Building everything at that moment is how the money gets wasted.
Is this you?
You probably need this if…
- You have an idea you cannot stop thinking about and no clear first step
- You know the problem intimately but not what to build for it
- You need something real to show a partner, a board or an investor
- You are worried about spending a year building the wrong thing
What's involved
The actual work.
No two engagements are identical, but this is the shape of it.
02
Validate before building
A prototype in front of real potential users, because their reaction is worth more than another planning session.
03
Build the first version
The smallest thing that genuinely solves the problem for someone, built properly enough to grow.
04
Plan what comes next
A roadmap based on what the first version actually taught you, not on the original guess.
What goes wrong
Mistakes worth
avoiding.
Named plainly, because most of them are easier to avoid than to undo.
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Building for eighteen months in private
The longer the gap before real users see it, the larger the correction when they do. Nothing is validated until someone who is not you tries to use it.
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Feature parity with an established competitor
They built those features over a decade in response to real demand. Matching the list is not a strategy, and you cannot fund it.
-
Confusing interest with commitment
People are polite. "That sounds useful" is not evidence — a signed pilot, a deposit or repeated unprompted use is.
How it runs
Start to finish.
Each phase ends in something you can open, click or read.
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01
Define
What problem, for whom, and how you will know it worked.
-
02
Prototype
Clickable, tested with real people, changed cheaply.
-
03
Build
The first real version, in two-week cycles you can see.
-
04
Launch and learn
Get it in front of users and watch what actually happens.
Deliverables
What you walk
away with.
Yours to keep, whatever happens next.
A clickable prototype before any code is written
A working first version, live
Source code and accounts in your name
A roadmap grounded in real user reaction
Questions
Worth asking.
Anything else — email hello@haddon.software and a human replies the same business day.
It depends entirely on scope, which is exactly why we start by narrowing it. After a short discovery you get a fixed number rather than a range. Cutting scope is the main lever, and we will push for it.
Almost never. Building everything means finding out whether the idea works at the latest and most expensive possible moment. Start with the one thing that proves it.
No, and it is common. You bring the problem knowledge, we bring the technical decisions — and we explain them in plain language so you can actually make the calls that are yours.
Maybe not, and we will say so on the first call. Where we tend to add most is the design and research side — knowing what to build, for whom, and in what order. If that is already covered, hiring for it twice is a waste of your money.
We are not fundraising advisors, but a working prototype and clear evidence from real users is generally more persuasive than a deck describing an intention. Several clients have used a first version exactly that way.
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Want to talk it through?
The first call is free, runs about thirty minutes, and you'll get a straight answer about whether we're the right fit — including when we're not.