How long does it actually take to build an MVP?
About 14 days, once the scope is locked. That number is easy to quote and slightly dishonest on its own, because the interesting part is everything around it: what has to happen before the clock starts, what the other build types really take, and the five things that reliably make a date slip.
A Foundreco MVP takes about 14 days of build time. Before that there is one to two weeks of validation and scoping, and after it there are a few days of store review that nobody controls. So from first message to a live app on a phone, plan for four to six weeks, not two.
The real timeline, by what you are building
These are the timelines quoted in Foundreco contracts, and each has a written milestone date attached to it. They assume the scope is locked before the build starts, which is the assumption that does most of the work.
| What you are building | Build time | What that covers |
|---|---|---|
| MVP | about 14 days | One platform, one core user journey done properly, real auth, a real database, payments if needed, live deployment |
| Web app | 6–10 weeks | Dashboards, portals and internal tools |
| Mobile app | 8–12 weeks | iOS and Android, shipped to both stores |
| SaaS product | 10–16 weeks | Multi-tenant, subscription billing, roles and permissions, an admin surface |
| Vibe-Code Rescue | 72h audit, then days to 2 weeks | Fixing an AI-generated codebase that already exists |
Add one to two weeks in front of any of these for the App Blueprint if you are starting from an idea rather than a locked scope.
Why 14 days is possible at all
Because AI does the first eighty per cent of the writing. Scaffolding, boilerplate, migrations, test stubs, the long unglamorous middle of a build — that used to be most of the calendar and now it is days.
What AI does not do is the last twenty per cent: authentication, payments, security, deployment, and deciding what to build. Every line that ships is read by a human before it does. That is the reason the number is 14 days rather than 3 days, and also the reason it is 14 days rather than three months.
What happens before the clock starts
Nothing gets built against a verbal description. That is not process for its own sake — it is how a fixed price stays fixed. The scoping phase runs one to two weeks and produces four things:
If you already have validation, research and a locked scope, this phase is skipped and the build starts immediately. Roughly half of founders do not, which is why it exists.
The five things that actually make it slip
In order of how often they are the cause:
| Cause | Typical cost in time | Who controls it |
|---|---|---|
| Scope added mid-build | Days to weeks | You. Every change is quoted before it is built, so you see the date move before you approve it |
| Waiting on content, accounts or a decision | However long the wait is | You. This is the single most common delay and it is invisible until it has already cost a week |
| App Store or Play Store review | A few days, occasionally longer | Nobody. Rejections are normal and get resolved rather than passed back to you |
| Third-party APIs that are slow or badly documented | Days | Partly foreseeable at scoping, which is when it should be flagged |
| Regulated data — health, finance, children | Weeks | Foreseeable. Compliance is real work and belongs in the estimate from the start |
Notice that the first two are on your side of the table. That is not a way of shifting blame — it is the reason the deadline guarantee has an exception written into it. If a milestone lands late because of Foundreco, that invoice drops 20% automatically. If it lands late because the build was waiting three weeks for your logo files, it does not. Both halves of that are in the contract rather than buried in it.
How you know where you are
Two things run for the whole build. A live cockpit shows what is done, what is next and how much of the budget has burned. And every week there is a recorded demo of working software, not a status email.
Both exist for the same reason: a nine-hour timezone gap is a very comfortable place for progress to hide, and "we're about eighty per cent done" is the most expensive sentence in software. If you want to check at 3am, check at 3am.
So what should you plan for?
If you are starting from an idea and want a live MVP in the stores, plan for four to six weeks end to end and treat 14 days as the build window inside that. If you already have a locked scope and designs, two to three weeks is realistic. If someone quotes you a live, launched product in five days, ask them which of authentication, payments, security and store review they are planning to skip.
Common questions about timelines
Can you go faster if I pay more?
What if I do not have a deadline?
How much of my time does this take?
Does the 14 days include design?
What if the deadline is missed?
Where does the price sit against these timelines?
Get a date you can hold me to
Send your idea in three sentences and you get an honest verdict within 24 hours. If it is worth building, you get scope, a fixed price and a milestone date in writing.