Startups Stack Exchange Archive

Should i implement my idea right now or wait to be an expert developer?

I am a beginer web developer. I got an idea that can be revolutionary in my country i believe. I already started writing code and implemented core features. Going to realease in next month.

But recently realized that my code quality is too bad that i will need to write from scratch if i want to do extraordinary with this project. If i wait 1 or 2 Years to be expert, i will be able to build easily maintainable website.

But i am too crazy to wait. And also someone may implement this idea if i wait. (Somehow i know, if somebody implements , my service will not be used by ANYONE)

Should i realese in next month or wait a year?

Answer 13522

The popular book Lean Startup recommends that the first version of your website should not be perfect. It can have bugs (as Facebook did when it started). But LEARN from it.

So do not wait to program your website. You do not need for it to be perfect. You need for it to exist, and you need to be able to see how people use it in order to make it better.

Answer 13563

Release sooner rather than later.

Most entrepreneurs and companies experience this when creating new products. If you don't have enough resources to make it perfect, release a minimum viable product. Something sellable that works even if it's not too pretty or has some bugs is much more likely to make money than a perfect product that's not available at all.

If you gain some revenue from it and the product still looks like it has potential, you can use the revenue to polish it and add more features. If it doesn't work out after all, you will only have wasted a little time and resources putting together the minimum viable product.

Answer 13515

Don’t procrastinate. If you think you’ve something, that it can work, and that you’ve enough runway to make it work, just go for it. You’ll hire better developers down the road who will rewrite whatever you came up with from scratch.

Answer 13518

Freenlance programmers on the Internet such as Upworks are not very expensive. You could offload some of your tasks to them.

Answer 13566

It makes sense to write a prototype just to understand what exactly do you need to implement. This allows to fill in the missing gaps in thinking you may not notice otherwise, and you can use it later to write a perfect specification for outsourcing where every later iteration and refactoring costs money.

You will see you made many changes in the prototype, even in places that initially looked crystal clear.


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