Building a SaaS and learning on the go?
All I have in my arsenal is HTML and CSS along with a basic knowledge in PHP.
But I have this Idea that seems very promising. In fact I am doing a serious market research and as I get more knowledgeable about the market, I can see that there a good chance of success.
Now let me repeat the first sentence, All I have in my arsenal is HTML and CSS along with a basic knowledge in PHP. I bought a book about Laravel (I read that it's good for SaaS and supports multi-tenancy), I am experimenting a bit and I am doing fine.
The software that I want to build is rich in functionalities, and it's value proposition is something along the lines of "everything in one place". which makes me more anxious.
Realistically , should I jump in and pursue this or should forget it and focus on my studies?
Do you (or someone you know) have managed to build something big while learning the used technology on the go.
I've been programming for around 40 years now. Building many apps and currently running a successful HR SaaS in which I wrote 99.8% of the codebase.
I am still learning and finding out new things every day. And I will continue to do so until the day they nail my coffin shut. I am still hesitant about trying certain stuff. I still get excited to try other stuff.
Jump in. Go. Do. Build. Keep learning and keep doing/building. Don't look back in 10 years time and say "I wish I had given that a shot". Instead, look back and say "I am so glad I tried that!".
I'll even probably learn something off YOU some day. Best of luck.
I learnt React while building a SaaS full time.
I would have chosen to get a full time job and get paid to learn. Employers also pay for training and you get to work with senior devs in a good company.
If you don't plan on getting a job in development then yes you can learn code while building a SaaS.
Use shortcuts where you can https://spark.laravel.com/ for PHP, there are others for different languages.
It's funny to me because I was in exactly the same situation 2 months ago!
I knew HTML & CSS and basic PHP and I decided to go all-in building a SaaS product.
I did a quick Laravel online course and I found out it is easy to learn on the go.
I would say my product is not trivial to build for a beginner (I am using WebSockets and real-time communication) and the chosen tech stack is not great as well...but I am doing OK and I enjoy the ability to build a product from a scratch by myself :)
You should definitely go for it and learn on the go.
I will say yes, it is totally possible and I've done it, but with the caveat that I have other programming fundamentals under my belt.
That being said, even if you are fairly new to development, it's still very possible - just be prepared for it to be challenging.
If you get totally stuck, there are a ton of resources out there and people willing to help (myself included) and even if the project doesn't turn out the way you want, it'll probably be a solid experience.
"The software that I want to build is rich in functionalities, and it's value proposition is something along the lines of "everything in one place". which makes me more anxious."
This makes me think that the tech is not the issue at hand, focus on validating if this is an actual business.
Rich in functionalities and something for everyone shows lack in focus that that can kill a project like this. Been there and thought that before, never worked out.
Become essential for 1 user first, then begin the steps to offering something to everyone.
My advice is read up on lean startup principles and similar strategies. Recognise their value and core goals rather than follow their messages blindly (that's a whole other issue seen too often!)
Life is too short to build things no-one wants (as someone said well)
Validation is what I am focusing on right now, and as I said before it's very promising.
My point was, even building an MVP would require so much functionalities.
I'm not building a software for everyone, I know exactly who is the user and why he needs the solution, In fact If executed well it will be a must-have.
Do you mind recommending a specific book?
Lean Startup by Eric Reis is the key book that most lean startup principles developed from.
If even building an MVP would require so much functionalities then it sounds like you are focused on your vision of the solution rather than breaking it down into smaller, simpler problems.
Start looking into the absolute simplest way that you can solve a single problem for one subset of your users, then use that to determine if the problem is valid and your ideas for the solution will be accepted by the users.
Often doesn't need tech or to be scalable, getting insight from real users is the key.
I'm looking in to this myself too and agree with @jakelazaroff sais. Maybe you don't need a JavaScript front end for now? I am challenging myself with this too. Do I spend time on just building backend, or learn front end... I don't like front end work 🙄 so why would I... I'll just get it to work backend and with ugly HTML. Then have someone else do the front end.
Also my advice would be to focus on small aspects. Especially if you don't have full time for it, like me. Just break the idea down in to the smallest parts you can. Like a function. Then another. Then another.
Before you know it you'll actually have something, instead of a dream!
Focus on your studies but don't drop your idea. Learning as you go is fine. If quick development is critical partner up with someone you trust.
You definitely can learn and build at the same time, although I'm sure it will be a challenge. Since you don't mention any javascript experience, I'd recommmend Svelte. It's an up-and-coming framework that you may not have heard of, but it is far-and-away the best framework to learn as a beginner. On top of that, it's actually faster than react, vue, and angular by a significant margin.
Learning difficulty and performance are two important concerns, but not necessarily the most important. Svelte is significantly less popular than all of the other frameworks listed, which means you'll have a much harder time finding libraries and help resources online. It's much less battle–tested, so you're likelier to run into novel and weird issues. Overall, it's a much riskier bet. If you're just learning to program and you must use a JavaScript framework, stick with React or maybe Vue. Once you’re familiar with the landscape and understand the tradeoffs you’re making, then maybe experiment with less proven technologies.
That said, if you don't absolutely have to build a JavaScript frontend, I would avoid doing so — at least at this point in time. It's perfectly possible to build an awesome SaaS using just HTML, CSS and PHP. You already have a lot to learn, so don't throw something else into the mix if you don't need to!
I agree that most of his logic should be in PHP, since that's what he's familiar with. We could probably agree that if his time was going to be spent learning something, it would be best spent learning Laravel and vanilla js, only bringing in the js framework if needed.
This comment was deleted 6 years ago