A fast MVP is not an excuse for an insecure MVP
You can move fast and still cover the basics. The problem is when security never enters the conversation until an incident forces it in, and by then it's too late.
The minimum before your first paying customer
- Passwords stored with a strong hash, never in plain text.
- HTTPS everywhere, no exceptions.
- Every API route validating resource ownership before returning or changing anything.
- Secrets, like API keys or database passwords, kept out of the code, in environment variables.
- A backup that's actually tested, not just configured and forgotten.
- Logging of access to sensitive data.
- Rate limiting on login and password recovery.
What can wait a little, but not forever
Red Team, bug bounty, and a fractional CISO are scale-stage moves, not MVP-stage ones. The checklist above is stage zero, what needs to be handled before anything more advanced makes sense.
Where this connects to technical training
This kind of foundation, architecture and security thought through from the start instead of as a reaction to a problem that already happened, is exactly what a serious digital product course should teach, instead of focusing only on features and shipping speed.
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