The most expensive software I've seen wasn't badly built. It was well built, carefully, for months, and then nobody used the part everyone was proudest of.
So my default advice is unglamorous: ship the boring version first.
Boring is a technical choice
Boring tools have been broken by thousands of teams before you. Their failure modes are documented, their limits are known, and hiring for them is easy. New tools might be better, but on day one you pay for that "might" with time you don't have.
Save the novelty for the one part of the product that is genuinely new. Everything around it should be dull and dependable.
Boring is a product choice
A plain first release answers the only question that matters early: does anyone want this? Animations, settings screens and edge cases can wait until real people show you where they spend their time.
Polish what people use. You only find out what that is by shipping.
A checklist for the first release
- One job, done well. If you can't describe it in a sentence, it's two releases.
- A proven stack. Choose what your team already knows.
- Real users within weeks. Not a demo: a working product in someone's hands.
- A way to listen. Analytics, a feedback link, or just your phone number.
None of this is exciting. That's the point. The exciting part comes later, when you're improving something people already rely on.