From spreadsheet to shipped MVP in ten weeks

Léa Marchand did not start with a product. She started with a spreadsheet that twelve people used every week, and a hunch that it could be more. Ten weeks later, Northvale had a shipped MVP and its first paying customers.

The spreadsheet was the prototype

Before writing code, Léa watched how her twelve users bent the spreadsheet to fit their work. The formulas they added themselves became the first feature list. Everything else waited.

What she cut

• User accounts beyond a simple email link
• A settings page (defaults worked for everyone)
• Integrations nobody had asked for yet

The lesson she shares with every new cohort: a deadline you cannot move is the best scoping tool there is.