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My startup progress that will buy me a Ferrari

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

AppMan

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Hi all
So as many of you know I have a tech startup that if it get executed and built right , might be a multi million worth. But I was and still in my 9 to 5 job , beside my limited experience in entrepreneurship, and my high talk to do ratio tendency I decided to get a mentor.
The first mentor seem good on paper whoever he wasnt competent and didn't add anything to my knowledge. So I dumped him and ask the org to assign another one, this one was gold , he is already fastlaner with two large companies under his belt. Very supportive and creative. So I decided to go with him .
My strategy is to build my startup plus monetize my web design business to bring me enough income to leave my 5-9 rat race cage.
Sh*t , it is already 12:13, will continue tomorrow .
 
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AppMan

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Today I have done from create DB architecture, although my mentor suggested to go with free database, but since my experience with Microsoft stack is better ,I decided to go with that for now until my app start making some profit then I ll switch so something cheaper or free such as MySql or NoSql Db .
Other things I did :
Setup my agile board
Setup My trello board
Deciding what features my app should have
Then deciding which of these features require for MVP (Minimal Viable Product) .

How I am doing it with 9 to 5 job ?
1- Exercising at 9 PM so I feel energetic after that.
2- Taking green tea pills at the evening ( not good but I am also doing it to loose weight )
3- Just executing: I stopped doing more plans and started executing feature by feature .
4- using drawing book to draw my mockups , it help me when I have no desire to look at the screen . Also I felt really creative doing that.
This weekend I am planning to finish the API so I can move after that to client side development and mobile app development .
Planning on outsourcing some of the work to India ,but I want to make sure all the backbone is done by me.
Have to admit , I really in need for more sleep. hopefully will find a way to sleep at least 7:30 hours daily.
 

AppMan

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So far I did a good progress, by working two hours before I go to my day job , however I feel like I cannot fight for all the fronts , as my MVP require :
1- Web interface (Viewer, Editor )
2- Mobile App (Design and Development)
3- Backend in cloud
4- Website to be used when I start contacting businesses.
5- Some Posters and brochures to educate businesses about this project.

So I did the following :
1- Divided my startup into these main projects.
2- Hire Virtual Assistance that practically she will be the product manager. However I gave her this title to she will not ask for high hourly rate.
3- Hire software developers that will help me progressing in all the fronts. I ll keep them minimally involved in backend as it is the core of my app, they will do mostly the fornt end projects.

What I noticed was that I enjoyed really developing my app. I haven't started from scratch building such a complex software from a long time, usually the companies I work on already have the product up and running, while here I am choosing what technology to use , and how to use it. However I have to be business minded and not sink myself in such details.
 

AppMan

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Yesterday I meet with my mentor , my application progress to what I called pre-MVP version, I was happy with that, as I never have software app progressed to this stage, all my previous software ideas was stopped after planning and initial set up stage with some coding that doesn't reach any releasable feature.
my mentor was really supportive and giving good advise, however I found that he give similar idea to another startup but applied in different industry, I felt little betrayed here, and part of that was because I didnt ask him to sigh NDA as my org has advised me. He also said will help me bring me my first customers, which was a big relef for me as this was my hardest part in the past projects
So far I spent 1000$ and I estimate another $2000 need to be spent to have MVP version released, beside another $1000 for website and marketing materials.
My day job is sucking all my energy and left me with little time to work on this project. But at this stage , this is the best I can do.
I also got accepted some webdesign job and really have no time to finish it, luckly I make the completion time little long in the contract so I am kind of protected.
Lessons learned :
Always sign NDA when it is required
Try to push even if 5 minutes daily
Stay very organized by using project management tools , as it is very easy to forget to implement something or things get messy.
 
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AppMan

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Today one of the tech giants released a new feature in their popular product that is exactly do what I was planning to make my app do, and for FREE !
now my product has to have more feature to compete with this giant tech company product, lucky it is not their main focus and most likely they will not add a lot capabilities to this feature in their product, even though their history show that anything they release people like it and use it.
 

francevalue

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Today one of the tech giants released a new feature in their popular product that is exactly do what I was planning to make my app do, and for FREE !
now my product has to have more feature to compete with this giant tech company product, lucky it is not their main focus and most likely they will not add a lot capabilities to this feature in their product, even though their history show that anything they release people like it and use it.
Stay strong man!
 

AppMan

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Stay strong man!
Thanks , I decided to go with with my product, first because it proves my idea is valid , second there is still room for competition, take Gmail for example , although it is feature packed and no other provider can provide same service level, there are still millions of people using other products for some reason or other .
 
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AppMan

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Today I kind of reached another milestone in the development of this software, and it sound like I need to put more time than what I expected initially, so to get motivated myself more I have put these reasons why I need to get this software up and running :
1- I want at least one software product launched before I turn 40 y. I spend too much time starting non-finished applications .
2- Executing a startup is a huge experience that without it , you are just another dreamer. It is also what angel investors look at when they decide to give you a resume.
3- I need a starting point product, without product I cannot learn and improve.

Based on that I decided to focus and continue developing my product.
Big challenge :
- Time for coding
 

AppMan

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So I decided to come back to work on my start-up , after I was frustrated because one of the tech giants doing something similar to what I am doing but I decided to do more modifications to add more value.

I post on freelancer advertise for a software developer to help me . Lucky finding software developer on this website is more easy than finding a good designer . Also I can interview them to know their level of experience. While I was checking why code to see where I left, I got a strong desire to start programming . especially I want to try the pub/sub framework as I never used it in my development career on micro service level .
I also installed the new SQL server and new VS 2019 , and was able to start programming. I want to program hand in hand with these developers, as I tried many of them before , all what care is getting the payment then they never show ( with a few exceptions ), then when you give them bad review they call you to modify it as they claim I ruined their income that feed their family.

Although I am planning to make it SaaS that run on cloud , however I am not designing it as cloud first, simply because cloud is too expensive . my plan is to rent virtual server that I can install all my component . or find some cheap cloud service.
Xamarin become really good and I ll use it instead of angular in building my apps , so the app will provide native experience.
 

Raja

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So I decided to come back to work on my start-up , after I was frustrated because one of the tech giants doing something similar to what I am doing but I decided to do more modifications to add more value.

I post on freelancer advertise for a software developer to help me . Lucky finding software developer on this website is more easy than finding a good designer . Also I can interview them to know their level of experience. While I was checking why code to see where I left, I got a strong desire to start programming . especially I want to try the pub/sub framework as I never used it in my development career on micro service level .
I also installed the new SQL server and new VS 2019 , and was able to start programming. I want to program hand in hand with these developers, as I tried many of them before , all what care is getting the payment then they never show ( with a few exceptions ), then when you give them bad review they call you to modify it as they claim I ruined their income that feed their family.

Although I am planning to make it SaaS that run on cloud , however I am not designing it as cloud first, simply because cloud is too expensive . my plan is to rent virtual server that I can install all my component . or find some cheap cloud service.
Xamarin become really good and I ll use it instead of angular in building my apps , so the app will provide native experience.
try flutter
 
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AppMan

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try flutter
Thank you , it is interesting , the downside you have to learn Dart lang , also my back-end is in C# so I want to stick on one tech stack .
my solution need to have 1 web UI , android and iOS apps , beside backend that serve all.
 

Raja

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Thank you , it is interesting , the downside you have to learn Dart lang , also my back-end is in C# so I want to stick on one tech stack .
my solution need to have 1 web UI , android and iOS apps , beside backend that serve all.
why backend in c#, does it serve any purpose.
there are much easier options available.
is backend is partially built?
you can try REST APIS
 

AppMan

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why backend in c#, does it serve any purpose.
there are much easier options available.
is backend is partially built?
you can try REST APIS
I am .Net Software developer, so C# and SQL is my bread and butter , the API is exposed as REST API to be consumed by Front end and the apps . Back end is 50% completed , currently the guys that I hired mainly will write integration tests that make sure the product is reliable and the quality is high. Surprisingly he is the second guy who was begging to hire him and once I awarded the offer for him he is not accepting the offer.
Any way I talked with head hunter and he told me hiring in real life is not that different from online , a lot of fake resumes and fake people .
 
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AppMan

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Today was a crazy day , I got 60 bid on my software develop job in freelancer website, most of them are fake and the non fake non of them was in the level of even writing unit tests or do some fixes. I have done 7 interviews and these people just try to fake it and google the answers, and they insist they know what they are talking about . their answers are funny , because they think I am like other doesn't know in tech , so they answer in confidence but it is wrong answer.
 

sparechange

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what kind of ferrari did you buy?
 

AppMan

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So the developer I have hired week ago left today, he was one of the few developers who know what they are doing , however he claimed he want more detail instructions to work , he want to be told exactly what to do in each method, I let him go because I am hiring him to take some overhead from me , so I cant baby sit him .
However I start writing a integration tests that will make sure all my APIs are working as expected , so far the results are good , and in this case I ll have reliable / high quality app . I ll add this to pipeline , however I ll need Redis instance on pipeline , clearly I am approaching the point when I ll need virtual server to run the tests after each commit .
 

BlackSuperman

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Hey brother,

Just wanted to say I am really impressed with your progress! You are starting on a project with a HIGH barrier to entry which is always great and I can tell that you'll have, not only control of the business but eventually once its all set, you more than likely will have a HUGE amount of free time!

Keep at it!

I don't have anything really valuable to add except some motivation! Earn that Ferrari baby! Keep performing an action and you will get there.

Process baby.

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread. Definitely excited to see where this goes!
 

AppMan

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May 25, 2019
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Hey brother,

Just wanted to say I am really impressed with your progress! You are starting on a project with a HIGH barrier to entry which is always great and I can tell that you'll have, not only control of the business but eventually once its all set, you more than likely will have a HUGE amount of free time!

Keep at it!

I don't have anything really valuable to add except some motivation! Earn that Ferrari baby! Keep performing an action and you will get there.

Process baby.

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread. Definitely excited to see where this goes!
Thanks man , will keep you updated
 
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sparechange

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I might pickup a Ferrari this weekend..



35031
 

AppMan

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May 25, 2019
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So finally a software developer agreed to work from freelancer website , I was expecting he is fake , especially he never have won any job before , however after the interview he turned to be a real developer working full time in a software company.
So I started giving him tasks that consume time so it is free me for architecture stuff and integrating the different parts of the product. So far I am satisfied with his results , and now I am thinking in hiring another developer for building the apps.
Without having a ready to ship product you cannot have company , also I want to start building the website, but so far all the names I looked for my product is already taken , especially the self explanatory ones.
 
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AppMan

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enterprise software is a bit different than "web design". web design is wordpress bullshit lol
In general web-design term now refer to building websites usually with minimal code or no code , while software development is refers other type of software that require coding , designing from ground usually .
Web designer cannot go far when custom functionality is required unless there are already plugin there to use it.
Enterprise apps are usually software directed to corporates world and it is the main revenue of many software companies
 
D

Deleted50669

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In general web-design term now refer to building websites usually with minimal code or no code , while software development is refers other type of software that require coding , designing from ground usually .
Web designer cannot go far when custom functionality is required unless there are already plugin there to use it.
Enterprise apps are usually software directed to corporates world and it is the main revenue of many software companies
To me web design is just a front end. No API, no persistence, no cache, etc. Just HTML/CSS/JS in the browser. But yea, either way it's a mute point lol
 

AppMan

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So Seem like I ll finish from my backend soon , the new developer is really progressing , he is billing me without using tracking app that let me check what he was doing during the billed time , but I am okay with that, since he is providing value equal to the money I am spending , if he started billing me hours not reasonable to his productivity level then I ll ask him to run the tracking app.
For me I started working on my client side App that was already developed by another developer, and I am discovering many issues there, while the developer made it work , he didnt do it in the best way. the reason I wasnt involved with him and all what I cared was to see the app working
lessons learned :
  • Always check your develop code , don't assuming they know what they are doing .
  • Make sure development decisions are taken by you , work as architecture and dont let them build components and part of software without your involvement in design , they dont think long term .
  • There is no such thing as "Fire and forget" with freelancers , it need active involvement from you otherwise you will end up getting what you didn't ask for.
  • Spend some time building CI , unit tests , it saves a lot of time if you are building SaaS
 
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AppMan

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Things are moving well , however this developer now moved to client side tasks he is not experienced in angular but he promised to learn and to only count the development time , so I let him continue for many reasons :
1- He delivered real value before
2- His hourly rate is too low , and getting more experience freelancer is not guarantee to have a better freelancer.
3- He is very responsive, which is also a rare feature in freelancers

for me I done building a pipeline on azure and soon will be able to have continues integration and continues delivery ready , so any check in will go directly to production server .

However I found myself sinking into technical challenges instead of focusing on getting the app ready for use , so I have to cut my interest in tech here , and have more "get it done" mentality
 

AppMan

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Last week was tuff for me, all the hired developers just left after their first tasks, although they look confidant and knowledgeable, but on the first real task they seem they dont know what to do, many freelancers seem to do the following :
bid low
win the bid
re-negotiate the terms .
That led me to waste many days , also I let many developer access to my code base , which mean now many have it , luckily I only allow them to either access front or back end repos but not both .

However I found how important to be a good software engineer to be able to manage such a project, I am basically engineering all the borderlines while developers job is coding based on my guidelines.
The experience I am getting is priceless, I advise any software develop out there to try build a software solution from tech to marketing in other words SaaS company, even if you fail you will get a wealth of knowledge .
 

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