6 ms·

Man but it's so hard to stop thinking. People said to build an MVP. I did. Comparing it with competitors, it looks empty. It gets the job done but what about ot

Man but it's so hard to stop thinking. People said to build an MVP. I did. Comparing it with competitors, it looks empty. It gets the job done but what about other 107 integrations with third-party APIs my competitors provide? Even if I show it to my potential customers, it feels like cheating. I feel like if they know about my competitors they're bound to leave my software for sure. This sucks, even more, when you are a solo developer. If I start chasing every feature competitors have it's gonna take me a decade to build. Man but I've put so much work already I don't want to give up too. It's a tiring mental dilemma.

shalmanese 8y ago
The key is to build a Minimal Viable Product. If your product is just a crappier version of someone else's product, then it's not viable. Focus solving a specific hair on fire problem that some subset of your user base has that they're willing to adopt your product, even if every other aspect of it is inferior. This gives you the oxygen to play catch up on other aspects.
jakobegger 8y ago
Nobody needs those 107 integrations. Everyone just needs two or three. Having 107 makes it more likely that you happen to have the 2 or 3 integrations that one specific customer needs. As a solo dev, you can't be all things to everyone. You need to focus. And if you focus on a subset of your customers, you may be able to do the two or three things your customers need better than the big guy who can do 107 things. And that's how you sell your product.
NicoJuicy 8y ago
I've build Tagly/Handlr as a knowledge base for a company ( MVP as they say - http://handlr.sapico.me http://handlr.sapico.me ), they went for SharePoint. After 2 years it's back on the table. And I've been dogfooding it ever since. The only thing is performance. But for it's porpose, it's perfect. A lot of things have more features, but I've build it as a managable HN with hierarchical tags. Which is kinda unique.
- anotheryou 8y ago
  I super interested in Knowledgbases and "hierarchical tags" are close to a few concepts of mine, too. I think handlr could use a tagline and an elevator pitch somewhere. From the looks I thought it might be a more general HN clone and even after a few clicks it doesn't really reveal to me what it actually does.
  - NicoJuicy 8y ago
    Because now it's only used as a feed reader. Tags can contain actions and fields ( eg. Email). Which makes it extensible. But it's not setup that way, I want stories in it and improved performance before I would ever pitch it
mrtksn 8y ago
> I feel like if they know about my competitors they're bound to leave my software for sure Who gives you the right to decide what a customer should want? If they are with you and they are happy with your solution and they stay with you, it's not in your right to think that they should be buying it from someone else. This is why we don't have one car model for each car category, one kind of food for each meal. It may seem logical that everybody should just buy the product with the most bang for their bucks but people usually need the right product. Sporks are more feature rich than spoons and forks but most people would prefer to use spoons for the soup and forks for the salad even when they are fully aware that sporks exist. if everyone is leaving you when they learn about your competitor it may mean that you don't have a viable product and you should make changes.
adrianhel 8y ago
All you need is a different angle. Read Blue Ocean Strategy.
- sah2ed 8y ago
  Honest question: what did you get out of the Blue Ocean Strategy book? I tried to read a sample on the Kindle app, but the text was simply ... impenetrable. The main idea, whatever it was, was couched in layers and layers of jargon. When I contrast their jargon-laced writing style (e.g value innovation) with the lucid writing style of Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell, I wonder how they managed to sell 4.5 million copies.
  - adrianhel 8y ago
    Oh, I had no problem reading it. The concept is simple. Take some similar existing products/services and create a cart of their attributes. Determine if you can find an easy win by adjusting some of the attributes to get ahead of the market and possibly add new attributes.

shalmanese 8y ago

The key is to build a Minimal Viable Product. If your product is just a crappier version of someone else's product, then it's not viable. Focus solving a specific hair on fire problem that some subset of your user base has that they're willing to adopt your product, even if every other aspect of it is inferior. This gives you the oxygen to play catch up on other aspects.

jakobegger 8y ago

Nobody needs those 107 integrations. Everyone just needs two or three. Having 107 makes it more likely that you happen to have the 2 or 3 integrations that one specific customer needs. As a solo dev, you can't be all things to everyone. You need to focus. And if you focus on a subset of your customers, you may be able to do the two or three things your customers need better than the big guy who can do 107 things. And that's how you sell your product.

NicoJuicy 8y ago

I've build Tagly/Handlr as a knowledge base for a company ( MVP as they say - http://handlr.sapico.me http://handlr.sapico.me ), they went for SharePoint. After 2 years it's back on the table. And I've been dogfooding it ever since. The only thing is performance. But for it's porpose, it's perfect. A lot of things have more features, but I've build it as a managable HN with hierarchical tags. Which is kinda unique.

anotheryou 8y ago
I super interested in Knowledgbases and "hierarchical tags" are close to a few concepts of mine, too. I think handlr could use a tagline and an elevator pitch somewhere. From the looks I thought it might be a more general HN clone and even after a few clicks it doesn't really reveal to me what it actually does.
- NicoJuicy 8y ago
  Because now it's only used as a feed reader. Tags can contain actions and fields ( eg. Email). Which makes it extensible. But it's not setup that way, I want stories in it and improved performance before I would ever pitch it

mrtksn 8y ago

> I feel like if they know about my competitors they're bound to leave my software for sure Who gives you the right to decide what a customer should want? If they are with you and they are happy with your solution and they stay with you, it's not in your right to think that they should be buying it from someone else. This is why we don't have one car model for each car category, one kind of food for each meal. It may seem logical that everybody should just buy the product with the most bang for their bucks but people usually need the right product. Sporks are more feature rich than spoons and forks but most people would prefer to use spoons for the soup and forks for the salad even when they are fully aware that sporks exist. if everyone is leaving you when they learn about your competitor it may mean that you don't have a viable product and you should make changes.

adrianhel 8y ago

All you need is a different angle. Read Blue Ocean Strategy.

sah2ed 8y ago
Honest question: what did you get out of the Blue Ocean Strategy book? I tried to read a sample on the Kindle app, but the text was simply ... impenetrable. The main idea, whatever it was, was couched in layers and layers of jargon. When I contrast their jargon-laced writing style (e.g value innovation) with the lucid writing style of Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell, I wonder how they managed to sell 4.5 million copies.
- adrianhel 8y ago
  Oh, I had no problem reading it. The concept is simple. Take some similar existing products/services and create a cart of their attributes. Determine if you can find an easy win by adjusting some of the attributes to get ahead of the market and possibly add new attributes.