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Feb 11, 2025
Building an MVP isn’t easy. It’s a constant battle between vision and reality, between wanting to create something groundbreaking and needing to actually ship a product. When we started working on Celaro, we had an ambitious idea. We wanted an all-in-one tool that could handle project tracking, task management, integrations, workflows, and more.
But from years of working on different projects, we’ve learned one hard truth: trying to build everything at once means delivering nothing at all.
01 Focusing on the Essentials
The first step in scaling down was defining the core problem we wanted to solve:
What do we actually need to make project tracking easier?
When we stripped away the noise, we landed on a few key things:
A clean, simple way to set up and manage tasks. This meant the ability to include essential details like descriptions, priority levels, and a comment section for team discussions.
A structured way to track progress. Since projects naturally go through different phases, having customizable stages was a must.
Everything else? It could wait.
In the early stages, it's tempting to cram in every feature that seems useful. But we knew keeping it simple would be the smartest way to tackle this.
02 Cutting Features Isn’t Giving Up
Reducing scope is by no means easy. When you’re building something, every feature feels important. Cutting things can feel like letting go of a part of the dream. But the reality is: scaling down isn’t giving up, it’s making sure you actually deliver.
We kept reminding ourselves of one saying:
“Perfect is the enemy of done.”
Instead of chasing perfection, we focused on launching an MVP that does a few things really well. From there, we can iterate based on real user feedback rather than assumptions.
03 The MVP Isn’t the Finish Line
It’s easy to think of an MVP as the final product, but in reality, it’s just the starting point. It's the foundation you build on, the first step in a long journey.
If we had stuck to our original, feature-packed vision, we’d still be stuck in development. Instead, we now have a working product. And more importantly, we're in a position to listen, learn, and improve.
Wrapping Up
Building an MVP forces you to make tough decisions. What actually matters? What can wait? The sooner you embrace the idea that launching imperfectly is better than never launching at all, the better off you'll be.
Now that we're about to launch the Celaro Beta for everyone on the waitlist, the real work begins. We're excited to see what our users think, where we can improve, and what we should build next. Even though we already have plenty in the pipeline.
Simon Hansson
Co-founder & Head of Marketing