Coming down from Mt Stupid

Hard to admit but I was sitting on the peak of Mt Stupid two months ago when I started working on a reporting tool for Facebook/Instagram ads. I knew about the Dunning-Kruger Effect but it's only when I stumbled upon that graph that it hit me.

I have a business background and I had just finished a 10-week coding bootcamp (around React / Node / Mongo / Heroku / etc).

I believed there were now so many great tools (like Firebase, Stripe, etc) that my limited tech skills would be enough to build a SaaS platform on my own. I thought I would just need to connect to a few APIs, buy a website template, maybe use some open-source code. I didn't expect this to be easy but I thought it would be a great learning experience and a (small) chance to live from something I had built.

I was wrong. The more I progress, the more I understand how little do I know about web development :)

I spent most of September-October talking to FB advertisers and get feedback on reports I'd make on Data Studio. As a former Facebook account manager, I was lucky to have a big network in the industry and I knew I was solving a real pain point. I just wanted to scale something that was already valuable to my clients: the Excel reports I'd make for them.

I now wanted to get the only validation that counts: unaffiliated paid users.

I got back to coding the MVP two weeks ago. I struggled to finish the implementation of Firebase Authentication, something that would be a piece of cake for most of you.

I came to the conclusion that It would be more efficient for me to get technical help to launch the MVP of the app. Sure, I could spend a few more weeks (months?) building the 3 or 4 features that I need. I would learn a lot. But I could also spend that time on consulting projects, bringing money to hire someone who would this much better than me.

If you made it here and you're interested, please reach out :)
And if you don't but you have experience building a web app with Firebase or connecting to the FB marketing API, I'd love to ask you a few questions!