No MVP should take 2.5 years. An MVP should be a prototype that will get you sales because it’s so awesome at solving a customers problem compared to what currently exists.
It should be a prototype that take a day or two (even just mockups) and you will discard 100 of them (based on real user feedback) before you hit one that is worthy to bring to production.
All your other problems are stemming from it taking too long for you to learn because you’re spending too long to build and not enough talking to people.
I highly recommend you buy Inspired by Marty Cagen and The Lean Startup by Eric Reis to get an idea of the software product development process that can be done in hours not years. Read those two books in a weekend and put them to work.
You’re making a common mistake for engineer-turned-entrepreneur. Stop coding, start prototyping and showing people immediately. You can get sales on that, i promise you.
Hopefully this removes some of your anxiety because, in reality, you’re working 100x harder than you should be and this will be easy by comparison, and move you faster to where you want to be.
It should be a prototype that take a day or two (even just mockups) and you will discard 100 of them (based on real user feedback) before you hit one that is worthy to bring to production.
All your other problems are stemming from it taking too long for you to learn because you’re spending too long to build and not enough talking to people.
I highly recommend you buy Inspired by Marty Cagen and The Lean Startup by Eric Reis to get an idea of the software product development process that can be done in hours not years. Read those two books in a weekend and put them to work.
You’re making a common mistake for engineer-turned-entrepreneur. Stop coding, start prototyping and showing people immediately. You can get sales on that, i promise you.
Hopefully this removes some of your anxiety because, in reality, you’re working 100x harder than you should be and this will be easy by comparison, and move you faster to where you want to be.