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Product Thinking

How I Prioritized an MVP at Trailr.ai

Taninwat Kaewpankan
2025-12-10
5 min read

At Trailr.ai, we were building something new — an AI tool for film trailer production. As an early-stage startup, we had big ideas but limited time. I quickly learned that the hardest part of product work isn't adding features. It's deciding what to leave out.

The Problem: Too Many Ideas, Not Enough Time

In the first few weeks, our design mockups were ambitious. We wanted a beautiful timeline editor, smooth animations, and lots of customization options. It looked great in Figma.

But when we started building, reality hit. Some features would take weeks to implement properly. Others created technical problems we hadn't expected. We couldn't do everything.

The Question That Helped Me Prioritize

I started asking myself: "What's the smallest thing we can build that still solves the user's problem?"

This question forced me to separate "nice to have" from "must have." For example:

  • The fancy animation? Nice to have.
  • The core project locking feature? Must have — without it, users would lose their work.

What I Cut and Why

We ended up removing several features from the first version:

  1. Advanced customization options — Users didn't need 10 choices. They needed 2 good ones.
  2. Smooth transitions everywhere — Some animations were causing performance issues. We kept them only where they improved the user experience.
  3. Extra navigation shortcuts — The simple version worked fine for now.

The Result

By focusing on the core value, we shipped faster. And here's the thing — users didn't miss the features we cut. They were happy with what we delivered.

What I Learned About MVP Thinking

  1. Start with the problem, not the solution. Ask yourself what the user is actually trying to do.
  2. Constraints are helpful. When you can't do everything, you're forced to do the right things.
  3. You can always add more later. It's easier to add features than to remove them.

This experience taught me that building a product isn't about having the most features. It's about solving a problem well — even if the solution is simple.