How to test your MVP in 2 hours

When you're shipping an MVP with 2 engineers and a deadline, you don't have time for a 40-page test plan. You need a prioritized playbook — the 20% of tests that catch 80% of the bugs your first users will notice.

Here's exactly what I do when a founder hires me for a 2-hour MVP audit.

Hour 1 — The critical path (60 min)

The critical path is the single flow your product *lives or dies* by. For a SaaS: signup → payment → first successful use. For an e-commerce: browse → add to cart → checkout → confirmation. For a marketplace: create listing → get contacted → transaction.

I run through this flow three times: 1. The happy path — everything works, valid inputs, expected browser. 2. The impatient user — clicking twice, refreshing mid-flow, back button abuse. 3. The broken input — expired cards, unicode names, 1000-character messages, disconnected wifi.

You'll find 3-5 bugs here. Guaranteed.

Hour 2 — Edges, mobile, and evidence (60 min)

• Mobile pass (20 min): Open the site on a real phone (not just DevTools). Rotate. Try the whole critical path with a thumb.
• Auth & permissions (15 min): Log out, come back. Log in as a different user. Try to access things you shouldn't.
• Empty & full states (10 min): New account with zero data. Account with 100 items. Long names, long emails.
• Evidence pass (15 min): Screenshots, HAR files, screen recordings for every bug. Prioritize by user impact.

What you skip

• Comprehensive cross-browser matrices (leave for post-launch)
• Load testing (leave for post-launch)
• Perfect accessibility audit (leave for post-launch)
• 100% code coverage automation (leave for post-launch)

Ship, learn, iterate. Perfect is the enemy of shipped.