HYSS

As you know, we are developing a browser extension against neck pain.

So guys, help me with testing and also help your neck simultaneously.

Check our website: hyss-neck.com

Here download our extension for free: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/therapy-instructions/ocgmajckfccbpplnlccpjkgfncikdgem/

! Important !Use "test@mail.ru" as an email when prompted.

Hit me with questions and feedback.

Cheers,
Andrii

#1. Idea and Validation.

So, I read somewhere that the first MVP should be made in 2 weeks with minimal or no cash for young and inexperienced founders.

After spending 25,000 € of my own money and more than six months of development, I entirely agree with that.

It:

a) is time-consuming: communicating, conveying the idea and vision to the developer, which is essential because developers cannot read your mind. It's better to over-communicate than under-communicate.

b) requires constant testing after each step and repeating the steps until you get exactly what you wanted.

c) each such step costs money: with all due respect and even while knowing that developers are trying their best, almost every time I caught myself thinking that the out-source guys are motivated to do a job longer :) BTW, if you read this, guys, I can only thank you, you did a great job. It is just... natural.

d) you don't know if it will AT LEAST pay off to zero.

e) If you have to make changes (and you will), you don't have a choice but to call/message your old developer, which is not flexible and consumes time and money.

If you've already started, here's how I tried to reduce the pain:

Strip your product down to the essentials. Cut out everything you don't need. Remember that you can become funded with just an idea, a pitch deck, and a couple of pictures.

Use deadlines. Although it may be obvious to you, dear reader, as a physician, I'm not used to deadlines. In the six months I spent developing the raw product, I didn't put a single deadline for my developers.

Find other sources of funding. I took extra shifts to fund the project. As a side, I'll probably continue to take these extra shifts for a long time since I found them to be highly worth my time today. It's a win all along.

Get involved in what the developers do, but only if you have built trust and know what to do. For example, making a Stripe account, a meta tag for the webpage, or a tag for Google Analytics saves extra minutes to hours of developer work time.

In the next product, I plan to use Nocode and make it on my own.

-Andrii

The extension is not pumping right now. But, I am happy since the main thing right now is to develop extension further.

How am I honing it? I collect feedback!

1. I gave the working version, MVP, as one may say to my relatives and friends, to my colleagues. I am awaiting a lot of biased comments on that. I still managed to get at least one helpful tip: I should make an option for 12 or 24 hours for my timer;

2. I posted the extension on Gumroad, Indie Hackers (duh), and asked for feedback in the Trends Group on Facebook. On FB, I have become one of the best advice to date. I should think about gamifying the extension so that I can increase the utilization of the product. Brilliant! Finding information and implementing gamification is one of the top priorities.

3. I am reaching users in Subreddits /posture and /pain. I practically ask what they would like to use for their problems. It usually takes time to build enough word of mouth. Here again, it helps to know the field: as a neurologist, I can directly give some advice as a response.

So, I am from Ukraine, working and living as a doctor in Germany for already six years.

I read a lot of stories, heard many podcasts, and watched many videos about starting a business and quitting a regular job.

The starting point was trends.co (for which I am thankful, it is an incredible portal).

My takes were:

"+" - I tried to fixate myself on the topics where I have had some experience already. For me, it was medicine and PC gaming.
"-" - I was convincing myself that I wanted to learn to code and even started. In the end, after many months, I honestly concluded that I did not have enough interest to commit to coding, so I quit. It could've saved a lot of time;
"+" - I decided to give the idea a time to "bloom." The first lights started shining when I read an article in Trends about the high demand for pain problems. Some of the opportunities were "hitting" just right within me, but I was not ready to take such an ample opportunity.
"-" - While I always had an idea to do something pain problem related, I dispersed myself between many other things. For example, I dumped some money in Helium Hotspot (helium.co). Please, understand that I am not saying it was/is a bad idea. It was a bad idea for me, and it was left behind, just like coding.
"+" - I understood the reason behind consistency. It is not that that I was grinding on "pain idea" day after day. It was reading about the exciting things described above with "the pain idea" in the back of my mind. And in this state, I read an article about Chrome extensions.

I decided to go small at the beginning. I am not in the position to advise since I have nothing to show off, but I found this a sound idea.
So I narrowed a "pain" to a "neck pain." The reason was simple: neck exercises were the most convenient and straightforward.

Another part. Be sure that your thing will help, and it will be supporting the right customers.
Here there is an edge: the results of clinical studies gave it to me. One can find a lot of information in it: statistics on future customers' age, gender, occupation, sometimes salary, and so on.

Another part is preparation.
I have already done the core product. I am not selling it yet. I am asking you to download and install it and try it. Hit me with feedback. I am looking for a negative one. I am collecting it, and upon it, I will evolve the product further till it is ready. I posted to my family, friends, and colleagues on Reddit, here, and so on.

I will see how it will go.

Feel free to ask me anything.

-Andrii