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I have only deployed the platform to production recently (couple weeks ago) so there are just few users now. Until I get more feedback from actual users / cust

I have only deployed the platform to production recently (couple weeks ago) so there are just few users now. Until I get more feedback from actual users / customers, I am trying to use common sense to decide which features should come first. I guess early customers could potentially have a big influence on how I prioritise upcoming features so I will wait for feedback. The reason why I haven't started working on Android app yet is because I have no experience with Android myself so I would have to outsource it to an expert. So far I have been able to do almost everything myself (I outsourced designs and initial mobile app but I have since taken over the iOS side as I know a bit of Objective C). It is getting a bit overwhelming as I need to handle infrastructure, backend, web app and iOS app at the moment just by myself. Plus I also have a full time job right now so the time is limited. I was also thinking about teaming up with somebody to help move forward faster ;)

brudgers 10y ago
To me, the decision to move forward faster or not should be made in the context resource constraints and availability as well as long term goals. For a venture capital backed company, the investment provides the resources to move forward faster. For a bootstrapped or self-funded company, moving forward faster may not be a sound strategy. In an area like infrastructure monitoring, there probably aren't first mover opportunities to capture massive market share. The market is competitive and a company will probably succeed or fail based on how well their product meets the needs of a small slice of the overall market and the quality of its financial management. In general, talking to users is often harder for people than just building something...it's work and programming is fun. For some people, even spending money tends to be more fun than talking to users. Accounting isn't that fun, for many people, either. The cost of an Android or iPhone app isn't just development time. It also increases the support surface. Add a platform and to delight users, it has to get the latest version quickly. Web+iOS+Android is potentially 50% more support when something breaks [assuming that it is equally easy to fix on each platform and each platform is equally reliable]. Achieving roll-out is a huge accomplishment. The next important steps are less technical and more business and personal and financial.
- richardknop 10y ago
  Thank you. Yes. That is what I am a bit worried about. Adding Android app would just introduce a new codebase to maintain and support and it would overwhelm me. I already have 3 different areas to maintain (API, web and iOS app). And I am at least familiar with all of these. But Android is completely out of my comfort zone. I have so far bootstrapped / self-funded everything so I think I can continue moving slowly as there isn't much pressure from anybody. I should probably continue slowly improving the API, web and iOS app and try to slowly organically grow early customers. I will worry about Android later. Perhaps I can set some sort of a milestone for myself. E.g. if I manage to get 500 customers, I will consider adding Android app. I have been looking at competition and I think they can be disrupted. One of the reasons why I started working on this was because I was using Pingdom before (which is one of the big players) but their mobile app was very bad and didn't work half of the time so I felt this can be done much better.
  - brudgers 10y ago
    That seems well thought out. Many overnight successes are ten years in the making. Running a business is hard.

brudgers 10y ago

To me, the decision to move forward faster or not should be made in the context resource constraints and availability as well as long term goals. For a venture capital backed company, the investment provides the resources to move forward faster. For a bootstrapped or self-funded company, moving forward faster may not be a sound strategy. In an area like infrastructure monitoring, there probably aren't first mover opportunities to capture massive market share. The market is competitive and a company will probably succeed or fail based on how well their product meets the needs of a small slice of the overall market and the quality of its financial management. In general, talking to users is often harder for people than just building something...it's work and programming is fun. For some people, even spending money tends to be more fun than talking to users. Accounting isn't that fun, for many people, either. The cost of an Android or iPhone app isn't just development time. It also increases the support surface. Add a platform and to delight users, it has to get the latest version quickly. Web+iOS+Android is potentially 50% more support when something breaks [assuming that it is equally easy to fix on each platform and each platform is equally reliable]. Achieving roll-out is a huge accomplishment. The next important steps are less technical and more business and personal and financial.

richardknop 10y ago
Thank you. Yes. That is what I am a bit worried about. Adding Android app would just introduce a new codebase to maintain and support and it would overwhelm me. I already have 3 different areas to maintain (API, web and iOS app). And I am at least familiar with all of these. But Android is completely out of my comfort zone. I have so far bootstrapped / self-funded everything so I think I can continue moving slowly as there isn't much pressure from anybody. I should probably continue slowly improving the API, web and iOS app and try to slowly organically grow early customers. I will worry about Android later. Perhaps I can set some sort of a milestone for myself. E.g. if I manage to get 500 customers, I will consider adding Android app. I have been looking at competition and I think they can be disrupted. One of the reasons why I started working on this was because I was using Pingdom before (which is one of the big players) but their mobile app was very bad and didn't work half of the time so I felt this can be done much better.
- brudgers 10y ago
  That seems well thought out. Many overnight successes are ten years in the making. Running a business is hard.