Building a Web App Without Being a Developer - Progress

Thanks to hubris, I've decided to try to learn enough development to create a SAAS side project. Initially, I looked into stringing together a bunch of services with something like Zapier, but ultimately I've decided to sit down and try to write the code for an MVP. I'm a data scientist, so I'm not starting from complete scratch in terms of code, but it feels like it. For example, I'm comfortable with SQL but decided to use an ORM for the app (something I've never done).

I decided to build the MVP myself for a few key reasons.

1. My time is cheap
2. It forces me to make all of the design and feature decisions, which I think will give me better control, and hopefully a more thoughtfully designed app than would result from farming it out with what I thought would be good requirements. If I do decide to hire out parts of it, I'll know what to ask for.
3. If this app fails, I'll have the pieces/knowhow to build much of the next one.

Downsides:

• The primary downside is that it's SO slow. Compared to watching professionals on youtube write code or implement features, my progress is glacial. If I'm failing, I'm failing a lot slower than I would have otherwise.

• I don't know what I don't know

Things I've Learned:

• There are so many decisions to be made at at every turn. What backend or CSS framework to use? Auth0? What database? How to deploy it? Containerization? I definitely spent too much time comparing AWS, GCP, Heroku, PythonAnywhere, and Digital Ocean. Everything has opinions for and against and I need to make decisions faster.

Things I've Done:

• Decided roughly on the scope of the MVP
• Sketched wireframes
• Implemented an authentication system

Things I Need To Do Soon:

• Write/implement tests for authentication system
• Build the core app functionality
• Build out the billing functionality

Things I'm Looking For:

• I'd like to find a cohort of people that are in roughy the same (pre-launch, but actively starting work) stage of their project to keep each other accountable for progress and help each other along the way. I thought IH would be good for this, but there doesn't seem to be a good group for that. IH also seems heavy on posts and light on comments.
• Do you know anyone that runs a restaurant in the US? I'd love to interview them.
• A web development mentor, not necessarily for code help but stuff like architecture, security best practices.

If you ever want to chat analytics, a/b testing, predictive modeling etc, feel free to ping me.