AI Can Build Your MVP. But Can It Help You Decide What to Build Next?

altuntas gokcer — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 13:02:22 +0000

Building the first version of an app is getting ridiculously fast.

You can describe an idea, wait a few minutes, and get something that already looks like a product.

That’s great.

But I think we’re starting to focus on the wrong part of the process.

The hard question is no longer just:

Can AI build this?

It’s:

What should we build first, what should we leave out, and what should we change after real users arrive?

The first prompt is not the product

Imagine you want to build a booking app for a small business.

It’s very easy to start adding things:

accounts
staff roles
payments
analytics
notifications
loyalty
admin tools
AI recommendations

And technically, AI might be able to generate all of them.

But that doesn’t mean version one needs them.

The actual first question might simply be:

Will customers use this instead of booking manually?

If you can answer that with one small workflow, everything else can wait.

That’s why I think the next generation of AI app builders needs to do more than generate features.

It needs to help with the decisions around them.

Before building, decide what actually belongs in version one

This is something we’re working on with built.new.

Full disclosure: I’m involved with the project.

The workflow doesn’t begin with “generate my app.”

It begins with questions.

Who is this for?

What does the user absolutely need to do on day one?

What can wait?

Who pays?

Then the product is planned screen by screen before the build starts.

And sometimes the useful answer is:

You don’t need that feature yet.

I think that matters more than it sounds.

When generating software becomes cheap, restraint becomes a product feature.

Build is only step one

The other thing I think AI app builders get wrong is where they stop.

A generated app is not automatically a business.

Once the product is live, you still need to know:

Are people using it?

Where are they dropping off?

Which users are converting?

Which marketing channels are actually working?

What should you change next?

That’s why built.new is designed around a longer loop:

plan → build → ship → measure → market → improve

The app is one part of the system.

The feedback loop around the app is what turns it into a product.

Imagine the builder seeing what happens after launch

Take a simple booking business.

The useful output isn’t only:

Your booking app is live.

It could also be:

Saturday appointments fill first.

This ad generated bookings. This one didn’t.

New customers are dropping before payment.

Should we add a deposit to first bookings?

That’s a much more interesting role for AI.

Not just generating another screen.

Helping you understand what the business is telling you.

The prompt shouldn’t be the end of the conversation

There’s another problem with the “one prompt → app” idea.

Products change constantly.

Someone uses the app and asks for something.

A workflow turns out to be confusing.

A feature nobody expected becomes important.

So instead of treating the generated project as finished, I think the builder should stay part of the product loop.

You should be able to come back and say:

“Add a deposit for first-time bookings.”

“Customers keep asking for evening slots. Change the booking flow.”

And continue from the product you already have.

That’s much closer to how real software is built anyway.

Maybe the real product is the loop

AI has already made the distance between an idea and a first build much shorter.

The next challenge is shortening this distance:

idea → plan → product → users → signal → better product

That’s the direction I find much more interesting.

Because the winner in AI app building probably won’t be the tool that generates the most features from one prompt.

It’ll be the one that helps someone with an idea keep making better decisions after the first prompt is over.

Would you rather have an AI builder that generates more features, or one that helps you decide what to build next?

DEV Community: altuntas gokcer

AI Can Build Your MVP. But Can It Help You Decide What to Build Next?