Things I *didn't* do to launch my prototype in 2 days
by Simon Hamp- Created a logo or worried about branding
- Set up any social media accounts
- Got all of my website copy perfect, written loads of support content or focused on SEO at all
- Designed any web pages
- Built for scale
- Worried about languages, frameworks, design patterns, layers of abstraction, tests/code coverage
- Set up a registration process
I'm not even using a database yet! 😱
What I have done:
- Planned what the product will do and picked the first thing to build, focused on that
- Bought a domain name or two
- Set up an SSL certificate
- Set out my data structure (capturing the absolute minimum data in files)
- Set up a support mailbox (using HelpScout)
- Set up some tracking (using Fathom Analytics)
- Hosted on a small VM
- Launch
Please check out Spred
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Such a great job!
However, I had a really hard time figuring out what the product is.
Also, it's kinda funny to say "ZERO, ZILCH, ZIP, NADA" about fees and then note that some banks may charge fees anyway.
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Thanks for taking the time to look at Spred @BernardBuilds. Your feedback is super helpful and I've just updated the copy to try to incorporate the various bits of feedback I've received here.
I will keep on trying to make it super clear what Spred does and who it's for.
I agree with your point about the bank fees, it's not ideal. But that's the sad reality - when you're making money, some people just want a piece wherever they can get it. Obviously, with these bank fees, you'll pay those on top of any card fees, chargeback fees and platform fees right now - at least with Spred, the other fees are out of the way.
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Excellent work!! Now that's how you launch and idea. We advocate for the same kind of thing in our DIY Startup School.
Speed and "good enough" is necessary in a lot of aspects. Where you need to spend the time and resources is in the foundation, getting to validated, and anything that serves that goal.
One thing I would say is it's probably helpful to add a little copy to the how it works page. I shared this with my team member and she said she wants to know how Spred's doing it, but absolutely did not watch more than 10 seconds of the video 😅
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Thanks so much @mekkie. Yeh, I think this quick release is the best way to do it, a lesson I've learned from watching many others do so successfully.
And that's excellent feedback. I've actually been working on more copy since that first launch, as I know it's super critical.
Sounds like I also need to work my 3-minute video down to something a little snappier too 😉
Awesome awesome feedback 🙏
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Always happy to give feedback!! Just ping me if there's any other way I can help in the future 😁
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Thanks for sharing!
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You're welcome. I hope it was helpful in some way
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Congratulations 🎉 This is a way to go!
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Congrats Simon, quite an achievement for 2 days of work, really!
I'm working on a platform that'll help you even more with webapp product launch and will save you a lot of time. It could for instance have helped you with the idea validation, have created a fully functional landing page and a basic webapp boilerplate. Just saying, in case you're interested in the future!
Cheers.-
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Thanks for the kind words @saidaitmbarek.
I'd love to take a look at your product... do you have a site online?
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Hey Simon, of course! Please have a look -> https://stimpack.io
Don't hesitate to enroll in the alpha waitlist, we're still looking for core users.
Cheers mate!
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This is great in general, but not sure when your product does something with people's bank accounts :D
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Glad you like it @heyjonas
Spred is building a new way to take and make payments online. Instead of using cards, it connects to the customer's bank and sets up a payment (such as ACH/SEPA/BACS) to the recipient's bank directly.
Funds go bank-to-bank and aren't handled by anyone in the middle. Which means it's quicker, safer and cheaper.
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That's the way to go: optimize for small successes rather than hard-to-achieve goals.
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Exactly! The quicker and smaller wins spur you on to take the next step up the mountain.
Thanks @sandhacker
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Good going! Is there a plan for validating Product Market Fit in the prototype phase?
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Awesome. Congrats on the quick launch. Out of curiosity, I noticed that you it uses Plaid. Won't the users just think about using Plaid instead since it offers pretty much the same benefits?
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Thanks @redgetan and that's a great question!
They most certainly can and if they can afford to meet Plaid's minimums for this payments product in the UK/EU, which requires a not insignificant investment, I'd actually encourage them to do so.
I'm also planning to offer a number of value-add features beyond just the payment mechanics to hopefully make consumer adoption easier and thus enhance the appeal of Open Banking for merchants as a payment method.
You can liken it to Buy Me a Coffee and similar services that use Stripe under the hood - I can use Stripe myself directly, or I can let someone else do the hard work for me 🙂
Then folks have the choice.
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Love it, Simon. I'm bookmarking this for review after I'm done hacking together my prototype.
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Awesome! You have to let me know more about your product so I can take a look @DrewMeulemans
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Of course! Here's a thread on Twitter where I'm documenting the build-out of my web app, Habitat Scout:
Have a mobile app in the works as well, but it's not currently the priority as it's not as straightforward to monetize.
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That looks super interesting! I'll keep my eye on your tweets.
I've flirted with Flutter a little, but not for web at all, that seems a bit too new.
Keen to see how you feel about Dart in this context - my background is very much rooted in HTML & JS, so I'm intrigued to see how you get on
All the best with your build!
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Great job, Simon! You've done an incredible job of launching your prototype in two days. You kept your focus on the most important features and were able to deliver them quickly. Kudos to you!
It's impressive that you didn't need a database yet. You've clearly thought out your data structure and have it all organised. That's a big plus!
You also set up the SSL security to make sure it's safe and secure. And you have the support mailbox set up to help with any queries. That's awesome.
You also have a tracking system in place to monitor user behaviour, which is great for making sure the user experience is smooth.
Overall, you've done an amazing job in such a short amount of time. Well done!
Have you done any post-launch analysis of your prototype?
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Thanks @SaLLaSaP43.
It's performing ok. So far with friends and acquaintances trying out the payment side I've made about £10, and the marketing site has attracted interest from 4 potential early adopters.
It's clear that visitors want more information, but it's not super clear exactly what they're missing yet.
I've got a lot more to do on this front - so while that first bit of effort to get an initial prototype out there is over and done, it's onto the hard work now!
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Hye Simon, great post. Congrats on your launch, it is very inspiring for me to see people succeed at launching products, which is no easy task. May I ask which server do you use to host the website ? Thx in advance!
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Hey @santy9090 thanks for the encouragement.
I'm using Digital Ocean to host the service right now. The website could probably be a static site tho and hosted for free on Netlify, which I may do at some point
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That is great info Simon. Did you build the site yourself (React, angular, etc) or did you use a no code tool to get it out so fast ?
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@santy9090 I built it myself. I had a pretty solid idea of what I wanted to convey already and with Tailwind I was able to literally throw something together that looked OK.
Obviously, where it's at today has (just a little) more finesse as it's been a couple weeks since I launched the first version.
That first version was literally a single page. I'm starting to flesh out a journey now and provide more detail. But still hand-rolling for now.
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That's pretty cool. And what about the backend ? Are you using Node.js or Django ? What is your approach to build scalable backend systems so fast ?
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It's PHP. I wouldn't say what's there is particularly scalable right now - that's one of the things o intentionally didn't want to worry about and part of how I was able to get a prototype out in such a short time.
I am now using Laravel to build the next iteration, as that's what I'm most familiar with so it allows me to move rapidly.
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Cool, sounds like a smart plan to build on what you know best. Are both the backend (PHP) and the front (Tailwind) on the same netlify server or have you found it is better to split up each service to different servers to make everything easier ?
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Btw, also followed you on twitter to follow your journey which sounds pretty awesome :)
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you already made 99% more than most of people that want to launch a product (including me) lol
keep going
