What are the challenges of developing your project? 🤔
Kou
65 replies
What are some of the challenges you have when developing your project?
For example
- It takes too long to develop.
- I can't think of any ideas.
- I don't have anyone to give me feedback etc
Share your challenges👇
Replies
Luis Gabriel Martins@luis_martins
The side projects I work on are usually small to medium size. One of my biggest struggles is to keep moving. When you're working by yourself (or with one other person) it's really easy to start slacking and lose momentum.
Right now I'm creating a Google Sheets course, I've done a lot of progress in the first month, since then work has really slowed. Finally getting speed back this week.
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@luis_martins What are some of the reasons that prevent development from proceeding? You're busy with your day job, and other high priority tasks have come up ?
I don't know what the best tools/software is too quickly make my idea work.
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@pimminderman1 Does this mean that you are creating too many features?
@814_kimura86 No, it means that I don't what tools are the best to get started. I am using know Google sheets, but what is a good landing tool? And how do I know it's good before start paying for it?
ContentBot
PRICING - figuring out the right price for the product along with your product-market fit
It's one of the hardest things to get right especially with so many variables at play.
Rate Rise Calculator
Staying focused. I have a tendency to jump from idea to idea, I get really excited initially and then as it becomes less exciting, I start looking for my next challenge. As a result, I find it difficult to ship things.
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@dwayne_charrington2 I also have a tendency jump from idea to idea.
But I think it's great to come up with so many ideas. Do you ever run out of ideas?
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@814_kimura86 Up until recently because of the pandemic, I found my creativity suffered greatly to the point where I stopped coming up with ideas. It's almost like my brain stopped working and it scared me. However, once I became aware of my block, I worked through it.
I just recently started a free ideas newsletter I am going to grow over time in hopes it stops me getting blocked ever again.
I go through periods where I'll have an explosion of ideas and other times where maybe only one or two every so often. I've never actually run out of ideas that I can think of.
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@dwayne_charrington2 Thanks👍
When you come up with an idea, do you start developing it right away? Or do you start doing user interviews to see the value of the idea?
As a bootstrapper i find it too difficult to find people even when i try to be generous in equity. but after many months of efforts i had made a team of 5 with planning to lunch our first release by March.
@sreekanth850 Me too. I hope I get there. It's just two of us so far (with amazing help from advisors). Any tips?
@celyn_brown hang out in Twitter communities, GitHub and LinkedIn. Prepare a good pitch, engage in discussion and if you find ideal guys just shot them a PM. You may get 100s of rejections which may demotivate you. Don't worry this is how it works all the way. This is toughest part of the startup journey.
RamenHacks
@celyn_brown @sreekanth850 Any community recommendations? Indiehacker, PH, and hackernews are the ones off the top of my head. I'm trying to compile a list of these for other people looking to partner up! This has also been a huge thorn in my side.
@celyn_brown @skellskellskell i think twitter and LinkedIn are more good in finding people. twitter had lot of communities where you can understand by looking to their profile and tweets. Engage and post content related to your domain then slowly started engaging with like-minded people and then start asking. It will not happen in a day will take some months if you go organic. Indie hacker and hn, well I am not well with those frankly.
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@celyn_brown @skellskellskell @sreekanth850 Do you use personas as a guide when finding users who will use your services? Or are you looking for something random?
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CEO Short List
Staying focused on the core problem your solution solves. Sometimes I find myself deviating from the core values and the data with an idea or something I'm convinced other people want (which is often not the case haha). I've gotten better at recognizing when this is happened, but it still happens.
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@alex_papageorge Thank you for your comment.
What do you do that distracts you from the core problem your solution solves?
There are times when my mind just thinks that my project idea is useless, "no one is going to use this", tho I originally plan to do it for portfolio.
I have no problem on the technical side, but it is really demotivating when my mind does that.
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@jefferson_jadulco I feel the same 😫
I sometimes let my anxiety get the better of me and close the service I developed without showing it to people.
Does that concern get resolved when you get feedback? Or is there some other cause?
RamenHacks
Finding people to bootstrap with is for sure the biggest blocker I've had for months!
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@skellskellskell Have you been working with your members to develop the project so far?
How do you always find your members?
Monetizing for sure. Every idea can build attraction, gain leads, and make an impact — but once a price comes into play... the whole game changes.
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@kennywu2002 How do you do initial user acquisition?
@814_kimura86 still learning haha, but my go-to strategies aren’t building a hype + slamming an offer at them, or taking in users for free before marketing, and then advertising once you have happy users.
Front Figure
I think for me was to get a technical co-founder, since I am a non-technical solo founder (i.e. I wasnt able to get one), I managed to hire a friend who owns a software house and I got a big discount with my MVP. So my plan is to launch and then hire a full stack developer part time. I have alot of informal advisors, so I have some help here and there. But other than that I know there are a lot of difficulties starting and operating a startup, so I am just planning to take it step by step and solve each problem when it's time comes.
With a community-based product that needs influencer-level voices to gain traction, it's incredibly tough to convince them to try a brand new product with minimal existing users. Even if the product is unique, useful, and allows them to monetize, I think the labor of bringing their existing following onto it feels like they're doing me a favor and not helping themselves, which makes me feel that I'm not marketing it the right way or doing something wrong.
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@814_kimura86 Lots of cold messaging via email, twitter, and some other places. Trying to gain visibility through websites like ProductHunt and others. Haven't pitched as much to news rooms / journalist agencies yet. Any ideas?
Zipcan
We have been very fortunate to land "enterprise" customers that like our vision and pay a lot, but they also expect a customized version. The hardest thing right now is balancing short term revenue and the demands that come with it; and our longer term vision for a larger market. We are limiting our enterprise engagements to 3 in CY 2020, but expect to have 100 self service customers by the end of the year. A challenge, but a fun one with a nice reward.
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Zipcan
@814_kimura86 You have to dig deep to find your sales/promotion skills. But maybe don't think of it that way. Just be super simple and clear in your communication. Then identify multiple channels - direct sales, network promotion, PR, social, etc. Experiment with a few things and see what works. If that does not get the results then find a team member/co-founder who has more experience getting customers.
The biggest challenge to me is the timing: Experienced timing with four start-ups, two of them where my own ones: 1 x to early, 1 x people not prepared, 2 x industry to settled.
But it is all good learnings; prepare harder, prepare to the point and get to the real nitty-gritties before proceeding.
@alex_gorman I am working on it, check it out and let me know if it is too early: https://www.producthunt.com/post...
Short term 'MVP-esque' features vs building with more thoughtful implementation and architectural decisions is consistently a challenge and back and forth for us
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@jeremy_fabatz When I think about architecture from a long-term perspective, I sometimes find that I actually didn't need it after the launch.
In your experience, which is better, releasing small or thinking about implementation thoughtfully?
@814_kimura86 Definitely with you here. Often times the small fix/feature is sufficient and is way more efficient in terms of time/effort. Thanks for the validation!
I think the biggest challenge is getting things done the industry standard way in terms of authentication. I work at a startup and I'm in charge of security and the entire backend. So it can get challenging mapping and designing the application whenever I run into deeper security issues.
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@asaiandrade The security challenge is a difficult one. Does the fact that there are security issues mean that many users are already using it?
Chatgen.ai
To figure out the product market fit. That's the most critical and toughest part. If customer finds value in your product and he is ready to pay the price you quote, you are sorted. Every other equation/challenge will come in order soon.
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I feel we have a great, meaningful, and useful product. But with virtually no budget, and being reliant on crowdfunding, even marketing and getting our product to be seen is difficult.
What can you advise?
Dermoband is a fashionable wristband that dispenses sanitizer.
Simple. Fashionable. Effective.
Feedback would be great!
https://igg.me/at/AkaUk8SD160
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@ryan_st_dare I would like to see how this product can be used.
Right now I only have an idea of the product itself.
For example, if you want to wash your hands outside, I wanted to see how you can use this product, whether it's an image or a video 👍
@814_kimura86 Thanks for spending the time. I do 3D animation myself, but I'm on a 2011 computer; so I'm going to try create a video. Unfortunately, I was hoping to raise capital in the concept phase, so I could afford to get the prototype made, or atleast have the surety that I could get one made without running at a loss, and film a advert with that, in which one would see the product in use. I have just about everything in order to do so, just not the funds.
The rubber-silicon band has an extruding chamber, that when pressed dispenses the sanitizer to the tips of the fingers. A video would show how effortless and ergonomic it is.
Thanks for your time! I appreciate your feedback.
RemNote
for me, it is learning how to effectively work with a team where we all are in different time zones and locations
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@matt_nguyen1 That's interesting 👍
It's hard to have meetings in different time zones.
What does it mean to you to work efficiently?
RemNote
@814_kimura86 i guess we're trying to get more comfortable with working asynchronously on projects. I feel like working asynchronously, there is less formal "accountability" so things get easily lost
For me, there are three main things, some mentioned in this thread already but absolutely true.
1: Finding cost effective and efficient methods of promoting what you are offering.
2: Finding employees without having to go through 10 each time to land 1 good one.
3: Offering a free version of your product and getting very little feedback from it.