Should I Quit My First Web Project?

[OhMyGuersh]

Earlier this year I had an idea inspired by the forum and Unscripted by MJ DeMarco. I felt that I didn't have much skills to fall back on and make money, nor any solid business ideas to pursue. So, I decided that I would develop the skills of full stack web development and build a website that aimed to help students at my school find other students who are unable to find a course that they need to register. I saw it as a win win because I would end up with skills that I can use to free lance, use to start a business eventually, as well as provide value to others for free.

It took me about 4 months of learning and coding (while working full-time) in my spare time to build and launch the website. The website is up and I has about 80 users who can search for jobs and find other students who want to open up a course section that filled up and they can't register for it. If enough students need a course section (10 or more), then the school has to open up a new section.

3 months have passed since release, and I'm starting to want to quit. The more effort I put into adding new features. The more I wonder if I'm wasting my time. I'm still yet to make a strong marketing effort because there are only those two features. The goal was to add resume analysis and then begin marketing in conjunction with my schools student government. One thing to keep in mind is there really is no set plans of where this project is heading and how to monetize it.

Also, over the past few months 4 other people and I (2 developers 2 business side) started developing a website that I feel has more potential. We just launched this week and will begin marketing and pushing this project even more in the future. Part of me wants to quit working on the first site I built. Any thoughts on what I should do?

 

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[Monkeycom]

Did you ever heard of the book the Lean Startup ?
What's your marketing plan ?

The best website of the world will not be successful if nobody know it exists.
The opposite is sadly also true.

Feel free to pm me your website - I'm happy to take a look at it

 

[Entre Eyes]

Create an Ecom website....ask on forums about every step to build it.

If you have time do some SEO and generate a few sales...every investor loves to buy something with proof of sales.

Sell it on Flippa.com or several others Auction sites to choose from.

Repeat.

 

[NMdad]

build a website that aimed to help students at my school find other students who are unable to find a course that they need to register

Offhand, this sounds like a weak need. Even if you're at a huge school with like 50k students, that's only 50k users MAX--and are they paying users?

And then even if enough students petition to get a section added, the university could change (or ignore) its policy--so there's no control.

Also, students have a stereotype of having no money to spend (i.e., to pay you).

What about the university(ies) as customers/clients? Schools/universities are doing & could do things with machine learning, like:

• predicting which applicants will do best/graduate
• predict admissions yield (a key metric for universities)
• predict which types of students will become donors
• reducing time spent on applications review (see GRADE: Machine Learning Support for Graduate Admissions)

Seems like those could be productize-able across universities.

 

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[astr0]

3 months have passed since release, and I'm starting to want to quit. The more effort I put into adding new features. The more I wonder if I'm wasting my time. I'm still yet to make a strong marketing effort because there are only those two features. The goal was to add resume analysis and then begin marketing in conjunction with my schools student government. One thing to keep in mind is there really is no set plans of where this project is heading and how to monetize it.

Why would you add new features when you don't have future plans for the project?

To me, it seems that you've already achieved something with this project. Like learning full-stack development, building something from scratch and getting 80 users onboard. It also opened the opportunity of being part of the second project.

I probably wouldn't miss the opportunity of getting hands dirty with marketing together with schools government. If you still don't have an idea of how to monetize it, you probably won't, so I would give it to the school and leave it in my portfolio just it case. Don't see points to adding more features when the project's future is so cloudy.

Good luck with your new project!

 

[OhMyGuersh]

Offhand, this sounds like a weak need. Even if you're at a huge school with like 50k students, that's only 50k users MAX--and are they paying users?

And then even if enough students petition to get a section added, the university could change (or ignore) its policy--so there's no control.

Also, students have a stereotype of having no money to spend (i.e., to pay you).

What about the university(ies) as customers/clients? Schools/universities are doing & could do things with machine learning, like:

• predicting which applicants will do best/graduate
• predict admissions yield (a key metric for universities)
• predict which types of students will become donors
• reducing time spent on applications review (see GRADE: Machine Learning Support for Graduate Admissions)

Seems like those could be productize-able across universities.

This is an awesome idea. I actually looked into this before and there is a market for it and companies are doing it. I just got intimidated because my machine learning knowledge is very limited. However, I'll look into it again and see what the market is like. One thing I learned from this project is that regardless of whether I build or hire to make a SAAS, it is wise to manage the business and not focus to much on building the product and business. So I don't need to be a machine learning expert. Thanks for the advice

 

[OhMyGuersh]

Why would you add new features when you don't have future plans for the project?

To me, it seems that you've already achieved something with this project. Like learning full-stack development, building something from scratch and getting 80 users onboard. It also opened the opportunity of being part of the second project.

I probably wouldn't miss the opportunity of getting hands dirty with marketing together with schools government. If you still don't have an idea of how to monetize it, you probably won't, so I would give it to the school and leave it in my portfolio just it case. Don't see points to adding more features when the project's future is so cloudy.

Good luck with your new project!

Thanks for your perspective. You brought up some valid points.

 

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