Frustrations with developers.

[vrenovation]

Hi Everyone!

I have read now all 3 books.
When I first read the Millionaire Fastlane (about 3 years ago) the world just opened up for me. It is amazing that something that you know is true can be so lost in your mind.

I have had our business in process to open ever since.
It is a Service we were wishing for at a difficult time of our life, but didn't even think that we can create it as well. Until I read the book.
This service fixes multiple problems with the industry that it is in, and it would be free for Customers to use.
I have been so excited to start this but have been having difficulty with getting the website up and running. Obviously I don't have tens of thousands of dollars to hire the best developers. I have wasted money and all this time on worthless developers as the site is still not functional. I have then decided that I will learn web development myself, but in the process of learning I have realized that it is going to take me a lot longer to even get to the point of able to edit this website. This site is very complex and I would need years of experience dealing with it on my part.
I have a developer working on it now as well but I see it being hopeless again.
Maybe I should spend more money and hire a developer who is costing more money but I am afraid that that will be a waste of money as well.
The reason I am so lost about this is that the website is working off of a Theme that would just need some tweaking and editing to get done, and yet it is apparently a challenge for even highly rated developers.
To develop the website from scratch would cost tens of thousands (that we don't have) and months.
I just don't know what to do next, or where can I find a person who can actually do the work.
Has anyone gone through this before? How did you get through it?
Also I feel ashamed that it has been about 2.5 years in the making and it is still not ready. I had a baby about a year ago and just focused on that for a while. I will get this business going but it is so frustrating that it is still not done.

 

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[Tau Ceti]

Hi there,

Let me preface this message by telling you that what I am about to say is probably not what you want to hear.

To get out of this situation in my opinion, you need to stop all development and go back to the drawing board with your project.

At this point it is not going anywhere and spending more money on it is not going to help you.

Please keep in mind that I don't know what your project is so to make this a bit more realistic, I am going to use an example which you can then use to build your project again in a better way.

If I were you this is how I would do it. Let pretend for a minute that your project related to helping people cook rice.

Instead of developing a project with all these complex features, I recommend you simply start a blog talking about the niche that you are targeting. In this case, people who buy rice, eat rice, cook rice.

Buy a cheap domain, for example https://howtobuyandcookriceonatuesdaynight.com

Then buy a premium WordPress theme with a nice UI and start writing posts related to your niche.
Get the SEO juice going. Write 3 to 4 high quality articles about topics related to your niche each week.

If you don't know how to write articles, SEO, and things related to SEO, there are many threads on this forum that can help you get started.

Do that for 6 months. At the beginning writing an article will take a lot of time but as you get better, it should only take you 1 to 2 hours per article.

Then start joining communities of people in your niche and try to help people in this communities, then start sharing your blog and your articles.

Once you have done that, start adding a prompt on your blog so people can subscribe to get your new articles.

As you spend more and more time in those communities, you will then be able to define what their problems are and what the solutions could be. Maybe it's website, maybe it's an mobile app, maybe it's a browser extension.

The point here is that you don't really know until you get the data.

This is the beginning of the thinking stage of your business. So far you haven't built anything and it is time to get started.

Talk to the people in those communities about your project, keep writing the blog, and maybe create a small wait-list for the business.

You will find that your solution to these problems will change, sometimes daily, until you find the right solution.

Keep talking to people, get them interested. If all goes well you should be able to get a wait-list of a few hundred people by that stage. All of whom are interested in your project/business.

Now, for the coding part.

You can go the DIY route and simply head to freecodecamp which is a completely free curriculum to learn web development and go from zero to hero within 6 months, or you can start hiring people to do it for you.

Personally I would learn to do it by myself as those skills will be useful to iterate on your product much faster. Also it is a lot cheaper.

I am professional developer and should I do freelance work, I would probably charge between $100 to $150 per hour. That is the price to pay for quality. Anyone whonclaims to do this for $20 per hour is not good and you will end up with a terrible app.

The idea is to get an MVP(minimum viable product) out of the door within 1 month.

I know you think your product needs 25 different features to be complete. Trust me it doesn't. What you need is to build the most important feature and that's it.

No authentication, no complicated workflows, just one feature. Then you need to get people to use it (remember that wait list we talked about before...)

Once people start using it, ask for feedback and start improving the product a little bit. Listen to your users. Ask questions. Then build.

After a month or so, add a payment link in your app and see if people are willing to pay for the product. This is the real test. If people do not want to pay for it, then you don't have business.

Ok, then what?

Well that depends, if you get to this stage and you start having a few customers, you can start thinking of adding more complicated features. Then you can raise your prices, and the cycle begins again. Build, market, get paid, and so on and so forth.

I know this is along process and I am not claiming that this will guarantee you success but your current way of doing things is not working so, I suggest you think real hard about your next steps.

Best of luck to you.

 

[TimoS.]

Hi there,

Let me preface this message by telling you that what I am about to say is probably not what you want to hear.

To get out of this situation in my opinion, you need to stop all development and go back to the drawing board with your project.

At this point it is not going anywhere and spending more money on it is not going to help you.

Please keep in mind that I don't know what your project is so to make this a bit more realistic, I am going to use an example which you can then use to build your project again in a better way.

If I were you this is how I would do it. Let pretend for a minute that your project related to helping people cook rice.

Instead of developing a project with all these complex features, I recommend you simply start a blog talking about the niche that you are targeting. In this case, people who buy rice, eat rice, cook rice.

Buy a cheap domain, for example https://howtobuyandcookriceonatuesdaynight.com

Then buy a premium WordPress theme with a nice UI and start writing posts related to your niche.
Get the SEO juice going. Write 3 to 4 high quality articles about topics related to your niche each week.

If you don't know how to write articles, SEO, and things related to SEO, there are many threads on this forum that can help you get started.

Do that for 6 months. At the beginning writing an article will take a lot of time but as you get better, it should only take you 1 to 2 hours per article.

Then start joining communities of people in your niche and try to help people in this communities, then start sharing your blog and your articles.

Once you have done that, start adding a prompt on your blog so people can subscribe to get your new articles.

As you spend more and more time in those communities, you will then be able to define what their problems are and what the solutions could be. Maybe it's website, maybe it's an mobile app, maybe it's a browser extension.

The point here is that you don't really know until you get the data.

This is the beginning of the thinking stage of your business. So far you haven't built anything and it is time to get started.

Talk to the people in those communities about your project, keep writing the blog, and maybe create a small wait-list for the business.

You will find that your solution to these problems will change, sometimes daily, until you find the right solution.

Keep talking to people, get them interested. If all goes well you should be able to get a wait-list of a few hundred people by that stage. All of whom are interested in your project/business.

Now, for the coding part.

You can go the DIY route and simply head to freecodecamp which is a completely free curriculum to learn web development and go from zero to hero within 6 months, or you can start hiring people to do it for you.

Personally I would learn to do it by myself as those skills will be useful to iterate on your product much faster. Also it is a lot cheaper.

I am professional developer and should I do freelance work, I would probably charge between $100 to $150 per hour. That is the price to pay for quality. Anyone whonclaims to do this for $20 per hour is not good and you will end up with a terrible app.

The idea is to get an MVP(minimum viable product) out of the door within 1 month.

I know you think your product needs 25 different features to be complete. Trust me it doesn't. What you need is to build the most important feature and that's it.

No authentication, no complicated workflows, just one feature. Then you need to get people to use it (remember that wait list we talked about before...)

Once people start using it, ask for feedback and start improving the product a little bit. Listen to your users. Ask questions. Then build.

After a month or so, add a payment link in your app and see if people are willing to pay for the product. This is the real test. If people do not want to pay for it, then you don't have business.

Ok, then what?

Well that depends, if you get to this stage and you start having a few customers, you can start thinking of adding more complicated features. Then you can raise your prices, and the cycle begins again. Build, market, get paid, and so on and so forth.

I know this is along process and I am not claiming that this will guarantee you success but your current way of doing things is not working so, I suggest you think real hard about your next steps.

Best of luck to you.

Yo thank you for taking your time to write such a nice post. You even helped me with the information you provided

 

[Tau Ceti]

Happy to help. This is definitely not the only way to reach success. I have a another thread where I write about building a SaaS from scratch, maybe that can help you too. Good luck.

 

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[kody.kendall]

Hi there,

Let me preface this message by telling you that what I am about to say is probably not what you want to hear.

To get out of this situation in my opinion, you need to stop all development and go back to the drawing board with your project.

At this point it is not going anywhere and spending more money on it is not going to help you.

Please keep in mind that I don't know what your project is so to make this a bit more realistic, I am going to use an example which you can then use to build your project again in a better way.

If I were you this is how I would do it. Let pretend for a minute that your project related to helping people cook rice.

Instead of developing a project with all these complex features, I recommend you simply start a blog talking about the niche that you are targeting. In this case, people who buy rice, eat rice, cook rice.

Buy a cheap domain, for example https://howtobuyandcookriceonatuesdaynight.com

Then buy a premium WordPress theme with a nice UI and start writing posts related to your niche.
Get the SEO juice going. Write 3 to 4 high quality articles about topics related to your niche each week.

If you don't know how to write articles, SEO, and things related to SEO, there are many threads on this forum that can help you get started.

Do that for 6 months. At the beginning writing an article will take a lot of time but as you get better, it should only take you 1 to 2 hours per article.

Then start joining communities of people in your niche and try to help people in this communities, then start sharing your blog and your articles.

Once you have done that, start adding a prompt on your blog so people can subscribe to get your new articles.

As you spend more and more time in those communities, you will then be able to define what their problems are and what the solutions could be. Maybe it's website, maybe it's an mobile app, maybe it's a browser extension.

The point here is that you don't really know until you get the data.

This is the beginning of the thinking stage of your business. So far you haven't built anything and it is time to get started.

Talk to the people in those communities about your project, keep writing the blog, and maybe create a small wait-list for the business.

You will find that your solution to these problems will change, sometimes daily, until you find the right solution.

Keep talking to people, get them interested. If all goes well you should be able to get a wait-list of a few hundred people by that stage. All of whom are interested in your project/business.

Now, for the coding part.

You can go the DIY route and simply head to freecodecamp which is a completely free curriculum to learn web development and go from zero to hero within 6 months, or you can start hiring people to do it for you.

Personally I would learn to do it by myself as those skills will be useful to iterate on your product much faster. Also it is a lot cheaper.

I am professional developer and should I do freelance work, I would probably charge between $100 to $150 per hour. That is the price to pay for quality. Anyone whonclaims to do this for $20 per hour is not good and you will end up with a terrible app.

The idea is to get an MVP(minimum viable product) out of the door within 1 month.

I know you think your product needs 25 different features to be complete. Trust me it doesn't. What you need is to build the most important feature and that's it.

No authentication, no complicated workflows, just one feature. Then you need to get people to use it (remember that wait list we talked about before...)

Once people start using it, ask for feedback and start improving the product a little bit. Listen to your users. Ask questions. Then build.

After a month or so, add a payment link in your app and see if people are willing to pay for the product. This is the real test. If people do not want to pay for it, then you don't have business.

Ok, then what?

Well that depends, if you get to this stage and you start having a few customers, you can start thinking of adding more complicated features. Then you can raise your prices, and the cycle begins again. Build, market, get paid, and so on and so forth.

I know this is along process and I am not claiming that this will guarantee you success but your current way of doing things is not working so, I suggest you think real hard about your next steps.

Best of luck to you.

This is really good advice.

I studied Computer Science at the University of Utah, am a technical founder of my own SaaS startup, and have been building apps for the last 5 years.

Continuing to dump more money into paying developers is a BLACK HOLE. I know people who have spent over $200K on building apps, and have gone nowhere. They've put second mortgages on their house, taken out credit card debt, etc. And they have nothing significant to show for it.

Also, these are smart, capable people.

Do not fall into the trap thinking you are smarter than other people who have tried and failed before you.

Y Combinator will not even consider funding a company or admitting them into their accelerator if they don't have at least one "technical" co-founder, that is somebody who has extensive experience building apps and can build the MVP without spending money. That's because they've seen it thousands of time -- building and launching a software product without having a highly technical person on the founding team is extremely, extremely difficult.

99.99% of aspiring companies without a technical co-founder will not be able to do it unless they have access to significant capital, or they really understand the solution space and can launch to a crowd of hungry customers that will pay them on day 1.

The approach outlined above is a way better route, because you are building a distribution channel and are building demand before you even have a product. You are learning the solution space, you're networking with your future customers, and you're offering them value.

If you had a community like that right now, and if you had a wait list of people who wanted your solution enough to have pre-paid for it, then it would be much easier developing a prototype/MVP, and convincing good developers to take the time to help you out.

Hell, I would even personally be willing to help you code up and launch a very limited web app MVP, or help you find the right developers if you had done all this initial leg-work and you were ready to launch to a crowd of eager users who have already paid you, or are ready to pay you for it on day one.

Without that? You would have to pay me at least $100/hour for me to even consider looking at it.

And even then, it would take hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours of launching an MVP, iterating on it, getting user feedback, etc.

And that takes YEARS of hard work. So you better have a lot of money and time to pay a developer to work through all those issues with you.

Compare that to being a technical founder yourself. It will still take years to launch and scale a successful software product, BUT you don't need access to money to do it. And even if you were technical, Tau's advice is still great advice because there's no use spending 3 years building an app that nobody wants.

Hence Y Combinator's slogan: "Build Something People Want."

Tau's approach will help you get social proof that you understand the solution space and will give you a platform to launch an MVP into that could generate sales on day one.

That is attractive to potential developers, and would be a way to convince people to help you for less money up front, or even better, to join you as a co-founder in your startup idea. (Then you could apply to YC or another startup accelerator, and they'd give you ~$500K to continue building out your dream).

 

[Tau Ceti]

This is really good advice.

I studied Computer Science at the University of Utah, am a technical founder of my own SaaS startup, and have been building apps for the last 5 years.

Continuing to dump more money into paying developers is a BLACK HOLE. I know people who have spent over $200K on building apps, and have gone nowhere. They've put second mortgages on their house, taken out credit card debt, etc. And they have nothing significant to show for it.

Also, these are smart, capable people.

Do not fall into the trap thinking you are smarter than other people who have tried and failed before you.

Y Combinator will not even consider funding a company or admitting them into their accelerator if they don't have at least one "technical" co-founder, that is somebody who has extensive experience building apps and can build the MVP without spending money. That's because they've seen it thousands of time -- building and launching a software product without having a highly technical person on the founding team is extremely, extremely difficult.

99.99% of aspiring companies without a technical co-founder will not be able to do it unless they have access to significant capital, or they really understand the solution space and can launch to a crowd of hungry customers that will pay them on day 1.

The approach outlined above is a way better route, because you are building a distribution channel and are building demand before you even have a product. You are learning the solution space, you're networking with your future customers, and you're offering them value.

If you had a community like that right now, and if you had a wait list of people who wanted your solution enough to have pre-paid for it, then it would be much easier developing a prototype/MVP, and convincing good developers to take the time to help you out.

Hell, I would even personally be willing to help you code up and launch a very limited web app MVP, or help you find the right developers if you had done all this initial leg-work and you were ready to launch to a crowd of eager users who have already paid you, or are ready to pay you for it on day one.

Without that? You would have to pay me at least $100/hour for me to even consider looking at it.

And even then, it would take hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours of launching an MVP, iterating on it, getting user feedback, etc.

And that takes YEARS of hard work. So you better have a lot of money and time to pay a developer to work through all those issues with you.

Compare that to being a technical founder yourself. It will still take years to launch and scale a successful software product, BUT you don't need access to money to do it. And even if you were technical, Tau's advice is still great advice because there's no use spending 3 years building an app that nobody wants.

Hence Y Combinator's slogan: "Build Something People Want."

Tau's approach will help you get social proof that you understand the solution space and will give you a platform to launch an MVP into that could generate sales on day one.

That is attractive to potential developers, and would be a way to convince people to help you for less money up front, or even better, to join you as a co-founder in your startup idea. (Then you could apply to YC or another startup accelerator, and they'd give you ~$500K to continue building out your dream).

@kody.kendall This is Gold! Very good advice.
@vrenovation feel free to ask further questions if something is not clear.

 

[vrenovation]

Hi there,

Let me preface this message by telling you that what I am about to say is probably not what you want to hear.

To get out of this situation in my opinion, you need to stop all development and go back to the drawing board with your project.

At this point it is not going anywhere and spending more money on it is not going to help you.

Please keep in mind that I don't know what your project is so to make this a bit more realistic, I am going to use an example which you can then use to build your project again in a better way.

If I were you this is how I would do it. Let pretend for a minute that your project related to helping people cook rice.

Instead of developing a project with all these complex features, I recommend you simply start a blog talking about the niche that you are targeting. In this case, people who buy rice, eat rice, cook rice.

Buy a cheap domain, for example https://howtobuyandcookriceonatuesdaynight.com

Then buy a premium WordPress theme with a nice UI and start writing posts related to your niche.
Get the SEO juice going. Write 3 to 4 high quality articles about topics related to your niche each week.

If you don't know how to write articles, SEO, and things related to SEO, there are many threads on this forum that can help you get started.

Do that for 6 months. At the beginning writing an article will take a lot of time but as you get better, it should only take you 1 to 2 hours per article.

Then start joining communities of people in your niche and try to help people in this communities, then start sharing your blog and your articles.

Once you have done that, start adding a prompt on your blog so people can subscribe to get your new articles.

As you spend more and more time in those communities, you will then be able to define what their problems are and what the solutions could be. Maybe it's website, maybe it's an mobile app, maybe it's a browser extension.

The point here is that you don't really know until you get the data.

This is the beginning of the thinking stage of your business. So far you haven't built anything and it is time to get started.

Talk to the people in those communities about your project, keep writing the blog, and maybe create a small wait-list for the business.

You will find that your solution to these problems will change, sometimes daily, until you find the right solution.

Keep talking to people, get them interested. If all goes well you should be able to get a wait-list of a few hundred people by that stage. All of whom are interested in your project/business.

Now, for the coding part.

You can go the DIY route and simply head to freecodecamp which is a completely free curriculum to learn web development and go from zero to hero within 6 months, or you can start hiring people to do it for you.

Personally I would learn to do it by myself as those skills will be useful to iterate on your product much faster. Also it is a lot cheaper.

I am professional developer and should I do freelance work, I would probably charge between $100 to $150 per hour. That is the price to pay for quality. Anyone whonclaims to do this for $20 per hour is not good and you will end up with a terrible app.

The idea is to get an MVP(minimum viable product) out of the door within 1 month.

I know you think your product needs 25 different features to be complete. Trust me it doesn't. What you need is to build the most important feature and that's it.

No authentication, no complicated workflows, just one feature. Then you need to get people to use it (remember that wait list we talked about before...)

Once people start using it, ask for feedback and start improving the product a little bit. Listen to your users. Ask questions. Then build.

After a month or so, add a payment link in your app and see if people are willing to pay for the product. This is the real test. If people do not want to pay for it, then you don't have business.

Ok, then what?

Well that depends, if you get to this stage and you start having a few customers, you can start thinking of adding more complicated features. Then you can raise your prices, and the cycle begins again. Build, market, get paid, and so on and so forth.

I know this is along process and I am not claiming that this will guarantee you success but your current way of doing things is not working so, I suggest you think real hard about your next steps.

Best of luck to you.

Thank you for your detailed answer.
That is something to think about for sure. I decided in the meantime that maybe having a super perfect and tweaked website is probably not manageable now, so I have another smaller Theme installed now and I want to see if it would work in the way where it is not perfect but can launch this Service on the road.
Then later when it is up and running we can work on making it better.
You are right start small and build.
So that is what I will do.
Thank you for your time and input again!

 

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[vrenovation]

This is really good advice.

I studied Computer Science at the University of Utah, am a technical founder of my own SaaS startup, and have been building apps for the last 5 years.

Continuing to dump more money into paying developers is a BLACK HOLE. I know people who have spent over $200K on building apps, and have gone nowhere. They've put second mortgages on their house, taken out credit card debt, etc. And they have nothing significant to show for it.

Also, these are smart, capable people.

Do not fall into the trap thinking you are smarter than other people who have tried and failed before you.

Y Combinator will not even consider funding a company or admitting them into their accelerator if they don't have at least one "technical" co-founder, that is somebody who has extensive experience building apps and can build the MVP without spending money. That's because they've seen it thousands of time -- building and launching a software product without having a highly technical person on the founding team is extremely, extremely difficult.

99.99% of aspiring companies without a technical co-founder will not be able to do it unless they have access to significant capital, or they really understand the solution space and can launch to a crowd of hungry customers that will pay them on day 1.

The approach outlined above is a way better route, because you are building a distribution channel and are building demand before you even have a product. You are learning the solution space, you're networking with your future customers, and you're offering them value.

If you had a community like that right now, and if you had a wait list of people who wanted your solution enough to have pre-paid for it, then it would be much easier developing a prototype/MVP, and convincing good developers to take the time to help you out.

Hell, I would even personally be willing to help you code up and launch a very limited web app MVP, or help you find the right developers if you had done all this initial leg-work and you were ready to launch to a crowd of eager users who have already paid you, or are ready to pay you for it on day one.

Without that? You would have to pay me at least $100/hour for me to even consider looking at it.

And even then, it would take hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours of launching an MVP, iterating on it, getting user feedback, etc.

And that takes YEARS of hard work. So you better have a lot of money and time to pay a developer to work through all those issues with you.

Compare that to being a technical founder yourself. It will still take years to launch and scale a successful software product, BUT you don't need access to money to do it. And even if you were technical, Tau's advice is still great advice because there's no use spending 3 years building an app that nobody wants.

Hence Y Combinator's slogan: "Build Something People Want."

Tau's approach will help you get social proof that you understand the solution space and will give you a platform to launch an MVP into that could generate sales on day one.

That is attractive to potential developers, and would be a way to convince people to help you for less money up front, or even better, to join you as a co-founder in your startup idea. (Then you could apply to YC or another startup accelerator, and they'd give you ~$500K to continue building out your dream).

Thank you this is great advice as well.
I am considering still learning to code as I think I will have difficulty with developers in the future.
I think ultimately I will be better off being able to do things myself. Or better manage the developers who would work for me later on.
Thank you again!

 

[Droopynips]

Thank you this is great advice as well.
I am considering still learning to code as I think I will have difficulty with developers in the future.
I think ultimately I will be better off being able to do things myself. Or better manage the developers who would work for me later on.
Thank you again!

isnt chatgpt going to make coding absolete i mean i am in school taking computer science and my amigo openai is doing all of my homework for me and i am averaging 90%

 

[vrenovation]

isnt chatgpt going to make coding absolete i mean i am in school taking computer science and my amigo openai is doing all of my homework for me and i am averaging 90%

Can you elaborate how this is possible?

 

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[Droopynips]

Can you elaborate how this is possible?

yes i can

 

[Xeon]

Hi Everyone!

I have read now all 3 books.
When I first read the Millionaire Fastlane (about 3 years ago) the world just opened up for me. It is amazing that something that you know is true can be so lost in your mind.

I have had our business in process to open ever since.
It is a Service we were wishing for at a difficult time of our life, but didn't even think that we can create it as well. Until I read the book.
This service fixes multiple problems with the industry that it is in, and it would be free for Customers to use.
I have been so excited to start this but have been having difficulty with getting the website up and running. Obviously I don't have tens of thousands of dollars to hire the best developers. I have wasted money and all this time on worthless developers as the site is still not functional. I have then decided that I will learn web development myself, but in the process of learning I have realized that it is going to take me a lot longer to even get to the point of able to edit this website. This site is very complex and I would need years of experience dealing with it on my part.
I have a developer working on it now as well but I see it being hopeless again.
Maybe I should spend more money and hire a developer who is costing more money but I am afraid that that will be a waste of money as well.
The reason I am so lost about this is that the website is working off of a Theme that would just need some tweaking and editing to get done, and yet it is apparently a challenge for even highly rated developers.
To develop the website from scratch would cost tens of thousands (that we don't have) and months.
I just don't know what to do next, or where can I find a person who can actually do the work.
Has anyone gone through this before? How did you get through it?
Also I feel ashamed that it has been about 2.5 years in the making and it is still not ready. I had a baby about a year ago and just focused on that for a while. I will get this business going but it is so frustrating that it is still not done.

Did the developers promised you that the job can be done in 2 months or less but ended up taking more than 2 years? Do they address you as "Sir"? Did they fix the bugs you pointed out but ended up introducing more bugs in other areas and it became a neverending cycle?

 

[Val Okafor]

I deeply empathize with your situation. And you have received a number of valuable pieces of advice here and I am sure you have realized that you do not have easy options.

I have been on both sides of your predicament. As a developer, I have been paid thousands of dollars by clients for projects that don’t go anywhere. As an [wannabe] entrepreneur, I have spent thousands of dollars on half-baked startup ideas that get abandoned. I have worked for fortune 500 companies with a team of up to eight other highly paid developers and a dozen support staff on R&D projects that eventually got canceled.

What do all these projects have in common - lack of clarity!

Software development is very expensive, and Rework is the #1 driver of cost in software development.

Smart entrepreneurs avoid embarking on Software development until they have a high level of clarity on what they want to build. You get that clarity by starting with a non-scabable process.

Without knowing the depth of your current commitment, it's hard to give generic advice. I would happily hop on a call and give you some pointers. I can help you determine what's salvageable from your current effort and how to pause the bleeding safely.

Once you pause the project, it's possible to go to market with a DIY Webflow website, other no-code tools, grit, desperation, and hustle for less than $100 and in less than 1 week.

 

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[srodrigo]

You've received very valuable advice from the guys above, so I don't have much to add.

I just wanted to stress the benefits of pre-sales. I'm seeing some "indie hackers" (fancy name for technical entrepreneurs) out there putting a landing page up with a pre-sales button that goes to Stripe, and a disclaimer saying if I don't deliver within X days you get your money back. This is HARD proof of someone willing to pay. Nothing beats this AFAIK.

Technical people (myself included) tend to build before selling. That's fine as long as you don't spend months before you ship a prototype. But even that might not be the most efficient way. Here's a suggestion: use a no-code tool, or get Figma up and running and build a clickable prototype you can share with users. This is the middle ground betten landing page with nothing that works and a basic app that took weeks or months to make. And the users part is critical. You don't have a business if you don't have people paying for what you made, so get people to try it out ASAP. I learnt this the hard way, believe me. I've got a graveyard of nice apps I didn't even share with anyone. Pointless...

And I agree with the guys above. Good developers (and graphic designers) are expensive. Every time I read "I want to build a functional MVP for $500", or see someone recommending outsourcing as if it was cheap, I roll my eyes and even waste 5 minutes of my life challenging the idea. Please folks, stop being delusional and get real.

Best of luck with your reboot.

 

[Devilery]

Do you even need to code your website?

Get a domain name (less than $20 a year), get WordPress hosting (around $10 a month), get Divi Builder ($100 a year), and build it yourself within a week at most. Use ChatGPT to write copy.

If you need advanced functionality, e.g. a billing system, use a plugin, don't code it.

What is that makes you want to code it? Are there really features that NEED to be coded?