First design the team workflow. Github / Slack / Pivotal / CircleCI / etc. Are enough to manage any distributed team. But make sure you hard encode the practise

First design the team workflow. Github / Slack / Pivotal / CircleCI / etc. Are enough to manage any distributed team. But make sure you hard encode the practises as rules. Decide beforehand: are we doing weekly sprints or all-hands release milestones? And make sure everyone is onboard and sticking to the rules. This is useful even (or especially) as a solo developer. And could just be as basic as a google doc spec. But design the process before beginning the product. Of course you don't have to be extremely orthodox about it. The process evolves with the project. But having that baseline of communication channel flow and global source of truth is rather critical. Then, you should be hearing the voice of Peter Norvig as he demonstrates a Sudoku Solver in your head. "Solve the problem first". Make sure your tech actually functions before building the UX, product or company around it. Actually, in my experience, its only once you explore the problem space that the use cases begin to pop out at you. Another trick to jump start inspiration is to have something tangible. This could be a brand name for which you register the domain. Or a unique logo. This first baby step to make it "real" can often become a rallying point that drives initial momentum.