tech-company, marketing, softwareI have had an idea a while ago, about an interesting approach to social media. It matured in time, and I have started to build it using my free time from the work, and weekends. So far, I have been building it through cutting edge tech, using AWS and scalability in mind. Currently I only had the chance to go through with the web interface and backend. The design turned out to be very sleek, so I have some confidence in it. It is not 100% ready to be in front of people, but I am getting very close. My confusion is at what to do once I am confident with the mvp and want to release it. I don’t have any savings. I am humbly versatile in software engineering, so I can build the IOS and Android apps myself as well. However I am losing my energy and health because of excess amount of coding. My eyes can only handle so much, and I feel like it is not gonna be sustainable for me to do the rest alone, once I am done with web site and backend. I really believe in the idea, and I have come far, written quite a bit of code, so I am determined to go through the end. However I need guidance. To guide you about the questions in my mind :
Please do not feel restricted by these questions when you tell me something, just say anything, as the confusion is heavy on me right now. Thanks in advance.
The quicker you get it out and let people try it out and play with it the better. That said, you claim your product is not 100% ready to be in front of people. That does not matter. The product will always be a work in progress and you need user feedback! You might think your product is awesome, but if nobody uses it, it’s useless. Put it out for the public to fool around with it for free and get as much feedback as possible. It’s generally a bad practice to work on a product for a long time, without any user interaction/feedback. Better to know an idea wasn’t that great after all right at the start, then after months/years of hard work.
What problem are you trying to solve with your product? Find out from as many people as possible, what pain they are facing with social media right now. If your product removes or at least lessens the pain, awesome!
Also, start talking with investors right away. Again, ask them the question above to probe the possible success of the product. But nevertheless, they might wanna see already a certain amount of users of the product (or not, but you need to start talking with them). You need a clear concept of how you are gonna make money with it and why people will buy it. I don’t know details of your product, but I’d suggest that you have a free and a future pro version of it.
Also, find a few good developers/marketing people that are passionate about the product and make them co-owners! It might be your idea and you might have worked already a bunch on it, but again, what use is it if you don’t make money out of it? By making a few selected others co-owners, you ensure that they are equally passionate and engaged and trying hard to make it a success story. They bring in new viewpoints, new ideas, new techniques, accelerated development, etc. Better e.g. 15% of a few million dollars in a few years than 100% of 0 or?
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