There's a lot of talk about the utility of building an MVP, especially for a young company. The idea is that you should build the smallest unit that you can interact with in the same way that you plan to interact with the whole thing. This is the earliest product where you can see whether your idea as a whole will work, and you can start to get a sense of where to go next.

For super-small organizations (and side projects), I think the very first step is to get to a minimum VISIBLE product. That's the smallest product where you can see all the pieces fit together. It may not be big enough to work in the same way the end product would work, but you should be able to see where all those pieces would go.

There are a number of advantages to thinking in terms of "visible" product for your very very first foray into building a product. First of all, it makes it easier to work with a team. You start to get an idea of where all of the different pieces of code will go and the interactions between the different pieces are defined. Second, you can start to show your idea to people and fill in the pieces with words, and those people can start to give you your very earliest verbal feedback, even before you reach the "viability" stage. Finally, it's inspiring. Before you can see your project come together, it can be hard to motivate yourself to work on it. The remaining task can loom so large that any individual step doesn't seem like it will make a difference. Creating a minimum visible product turns that on its head. All of a sudden, you can see every change you make and each step seems to fill in more of the details. You can see your project come to life a day at a time!

If you're starting out on something new, I encourage you to stop sweating the details and pull together an end-to-end demo as soon as you can. You'll feel more motivated and you'll have something to show for your efforts.