Second

Second launched their MVP in late 2022 with a narrow focus: automated code migrations for enterprise repositories. The team shipped within weeks, deliberately excluding comprehensive testing frameworks, multi-language support beyond Python and JavaScript, and enterprise security features like SSO. This stripped-down approach let them validate demand quickly and land early customers. However, their execution speed masked fundamental problems. Enterprise sales cycles demanded features they'd deprioritized—security compliance, audit logs, and integration depth. Each customer required custom engineering work, destroying unit economics. The team discovered too late that their core assumption—that enterprises would adopt AI-native tooling rapidly—was wrong. Early warning signs included long sales cycles, high churn, and customers requesting features that contradicted their original vision. By prioritizing velocity over product-market fit validation, Second optimized for the wrong metric. They shipped fast but learned slowly, burning runway before understanding whether enterprises actually wanted their solution or merely tolerated it as an experiment.