What should I build next as a solo founder?
By Faina Shpund, product leader and advisor to early-stage founders. Updated 2026-10-20.
The short answer
Build the smallest thing that answers your biggest open question about whether people will use and pay for the product. If you don't know what that question is, stop building and find it. A roadmap is often a list of things that feel productive but teach you nothing.
Name the riskiest assumption
Write down what has to be true for this business to work. Circle the one you have the least evidence for. That's what the next piece of work should test.
Sort requests into signal, politeness, and distraction
A feature request is signal when the person describing it's already paying, or would pay, and the request blocks them. It's politeness when it comes with no urgency. It's distraction when it serves someone who isn't your customer.
Make the next build small and dated
Pick something you can ship in one or two weeks, decide in advance what result would change your mind, and check back on that date. This turns a roadmap into a series of experiments.
Common questions
- How do I prioritize features with no data?
- Prioritize by what you'll learn. Pick the work that tests the assumption you have the least evidence for.
- Should I build what my users ask for?
- Build what paying or ready-to-pay users need to get value. Treat requests from non-customers as notes.
- What if everything feels equally important?
- That usually means the goal isn't specific yet. Decide what you need to learn this month, and a lot of the list drops away.
About the author
Faina Shpund has spent 20 years building products. She helps solo and early-stage founders decide what to build next, test whether an idea has demand, and figure out why a launch isn't finding users.
Want her to look at your specific situation? The Practice is a 3 month, 1:1 program with biweekly calls and Slack access between calls. You'll find a problem people already spend time or money coping with, validate it, and define the MVP.
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