How do you actually start? Help a struggling developer.
Hey everyone! I'm a full-time front-end developer. I'm very interested in business and would want to build my own products, though I can't seem to get myself to start... Any tips on how to get over that hump and start shipping?
Build something for yourself first. if you love it share it with others. then start charging.
Agree with this. It makes a huge difference when you're passionate about the product you're developing, whether it's to solve a problem that you encounter often or if it's for a cause that you're passionate about.
Additionally, when it comes down to the actual development, start with the easiest part, which in your case is the front-end of the app. It'll make the other parts of the product (e.g., back-end, DB) much more tolerable to learn. For example, I'm a data engineer so I started out by building the database architecture and pulling in data from different sources that I need for my product. If I had started out on the front-end, I'd probably have lost motivation by now.
Hope that helps!
Agree with starting with what's the easiest, so at least you can get some quick and early victories of completing things. Though I'm a bit stuck on the first part, I personally don't have a lot of problems I need to solve, though I do have a list of problems I think I could solve. Unsure which one to pick.
What if there's nothing that I would feel the need to build for myself?
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As a developer (I’m a full time dev too), it’s natural to want to start coding. I’ve listened to a lot of the indiehackers podcasts and a common thread I hear is to start finding the customers either through blogging, social media, etc. As strange as it sounds, write a blog post about an idea you have and post on here or social media to get feedback. If you don’t quite have a product in mind, search social media for posts where people are describing a problem and see if you can build a product to help solve that issue. Lastly, don’t worry about making mistakes or failing. Just iterate. Ask yourself, “why didn’t this work to attract more users?”
In which stage do you find yourself stuck?
I have a free guide at www.makesomething.app
It's still a work in progress and I haven't been updating it -- but if you want to follow that you can message me directly and I will help you :)
Here's what worked for me. I've always had lots of ideas, but I could never start for years.
Build something you can do in less than a day. Just build a tiny feature, show it to your significant other or someone who cares. Just do that without worrying about the complex parts. You'll probably get excited and the next day, you'll add another tiny peace or tweak to it.
Commit yourself and in a week or so, boom you'll have a project. Share it with more people and keep going!
Build something very small with just a few features, keep the build timeline low so that you can launch earlier than later. The more time you spend on development, your motivation starts to drop and less likely you will launch it.
Check Pieter Levels's 12 startups in 12 months.
Builder to do list and release it. Should take about a week make sure there’s no bugs, Posted on a junk domain and complete the project.
Reply to this comment in a week, and we’ll go from there.
Hey Philip, Ive got a CRM/Todo list using Google contacts. Open to a SaaSy cofounder. Already got some insurance agents and wide range of small business users. Let me know if interested in more info?
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