4 ms·

>As you age, you naturally accumulate things that will make >it harder for you to start your startup: a spouse, kids, >aging parents who need care, an expensive

>As you age, you naturally accumulate things that will make >it harder for you to start your startup: a spouse, kids, >aging parents who need care, an expensive lifestyle, a >career, respectability. I have to say I completely agree with this. I'm only 31 and finding it hard to take on much risk given the fact that my family relies on my income very heavily. This leaves me trying to spend time in the evenings and weekends to work a B2B SaaS product idea that I have. I've thought about paying another developer to write it, but it's an app that's targeted towards the IT Services/Managed Services industry and writing it requires some background knowledge of that industry.

karolist 16y ago
Sounds like you need a technical co-founder, in this case - someone who's technical and believes in your idea enough to put time developing for it.
- jrsmith1279 16y ago
  I agree and I've tried that route a bit, but I've had a little bit of trouble conveying the idea to someone else in order to get them to believe in it. I've found that I really need to create a mockup if I'm going to go that route and I just haven't taken the time to do that yet. I also live in an area that's not rich in technical-minded people (Waco, Texas), much less developers. So finding someone locally is almost surely out of the question.
dutchrapley 16y ago
There are no excuses. If the it is important and matters, you will always find a way. If you have the know how, start by spending 30 minutes a day on it. Get up 30 minutes earlier. Pack your lunch and work on it then. Small steps are important. Try to make time daily. You're in the process of discovering a product. When you close your eyes, can you see yourself using this product? Do have this feeling that you're using it as if it already exists? Do you find yourself constantly thinking about it? Hiring developers can be toxic - they'll certainly be able bill hours for building features, but would they be able to help you discover your product?
- jrsmith1279 16y ago
  Not sure why people down voted your comments. I agree with what you're saying and I appreciate the feedback. I work for an IT Services provider as a Level II technician and I am in charge of providing a certain service to our clients on a daily basis. To administer this service I have to take time out of my normal routine of working tickets and sometimes I find it hard to find the time to do that. My app would make administering this service easier for me, but it would also allow me to pass the duties down to a Level I tech who isn't as busy with working tickets. There's not a product on the market that does this and I believe that the market is huge as far as IT Services providers goes. Writing this app is all I can think about. I think about it before I go to sleep every night, I think about it in the shower, I think about it all day at work. I don't think it'll make me rich, but that's really not my goal anyways. It's more about contributing to the industry that I work in to make life easier for techs like myself. I sort of agree with your thoughts on hiring developers, but I have to believe that this isn't the case with all developers. I think it's possible to find a developer to work with me instead of for me and in that case I think they'd play a key role in the discovery of the product.
  - dutchrapley 16y ago
    "I have to believe that this isn't the case with all developers. I think it's possible to find a developer to work with me instead of for me and in that case I think they'd play a key role in the discovery of the product." Very true. And that's key - to find a developer who shares your vision and passion. You might want to consider picking up a copy of Balsamiq Mockups (<a href="http://balsamiq.com/products/mockups>Link</a> http://balsamiq.com/products/mockups>Link</a>). You can quickly start mocking up the UI. You can even make it clickable and export one as a PDF (still clickable). Having a mockup will allow for you to add to and take away from the UI. It would also come in handy when you're ready to pass work to a developer. Having trouble finding tech savvy folks in Waco? Start a networking group, something akin to <a href="http://refreshingcities.com/>Refresh</a> http://refreshingcities.com/>Refresh</a>.
    - jrsmith1279 16y ago
noahc 16y ago
Is it a CRUD app? Forget the marketing, etc. Are you only Creating, reading, updating and deleting data? If that's the case pick a language + web framework and go to town nights and weekends.
- jrsmith1279 16y ago
  CRUD is a good part of it and I'm planning on using RoR, but there's also part of it that will interface with a POP3 server and do some regex on the messages that it grabs. The pricing model for the app will be a recurring monthly fee based on the number of clients the customer has signed up for the service. I'm still looking at options for handling the payment (recurly, braintree ..etc) and I've never built an app with a payment system, so I'm having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around that sort of thing.
  - noahc 16y ago
    Just start building it. What's your MVP look like? Braintree makes the payments dead simple and for <1k you have someone integrate it all into your application. Don't worry about payments until you have the app built. It sounds like you're afraid to make mistakes on the engineering side. Just start building the thing and don't worry about engineering. You can always refractor code later!
    - jrsmith1279 16y ago
      I'm not sure what you mean by MVP. You're definitely right about me being afraid of making mistakes on the engineering side and now that you point that out I think you've helped me see that I just need to start building something instead of coming up with reasons why I can't or shouldn't.
      - noahc 16y ago
        Minimally Viable Product. Basically, "What is the least you can do and still create value?" is your MVP. If you can build this you can figure out what value you actually add and how to leverage what you built to add even more value. Most people get who their real customers are wrong.

karolist 16y ago

Sounds like you need a technical co-founder, in this case - someone who's technical and believes in your idea enough to put time developing for it.

jrsmith1279 16y ago
I agree and I've tried that route a bit, but I've had a little bit of trouble conveying the idea to someone else in order to get them to believe in it. I've found that I really need to create a mockup if I'm going to go that route and I just haven't taken the time to do that yet. I also live in an area that's not rich in technical-minded people (Waco, Texas), much less developers. So finding someone locally is almost surely out of the question.

dutchrapley 16y ago

There are no excuses. If the it is important and matters, you will always find a way. If you have the know how, start by spending 30 minutes a day on it. Get up 30 minutes earlier. Pack your lunch and work on it then. Small steps are important. Try to make time daily. You're in the process of discovering a product. When you close your eyes, can you see yourself using this product? Do have this feeling that you're using it as if it already exists? Do you find yourself constantly thinking about it? Hiring developers can be toxic - they'll certainly be able bill hours for building features, but would they be able to help you discover your product?

jrsmith1279 16y ago
Not sure why people down voted your comments. I agree with what you're saying and I appreciate the feedback. I work for an IT Services provider as a Level II technician and I am in charge of providing a certain service to our clients on a daily basis. To administer this service I have to take time out of my normal routine of working tickets and sometimes I find it hard to find the time to do that. My app would make administering this service easier for me, but it would also allow me to pass the duties down to a Level I tech who isn't as busy with working tickets. There's not a product on the market that does this and I believe that the market is huge as far as IT Services providers goes. Writing this app is all I can think about. I think about it before I go to sleep every night, I think about it in the shower, I think about it all day at work. I don't think it'll make me rich, but that's really not my goal anyways. It's more about contributing to the industry that I work in to make life easier for techs like myself. I sort of agree with your thoughts on hiring developers, but I have to believe that this isn't the case with all developers. I think it's possible to find a developer to work with me instead of for me and in that case I think they'd play a key role in the discovery of the product.
- dutchrapley 16y ago
  "I have to believe that this isn't the case with all developers. I think it's possible to find a developer to work with me instead of for me and in that case I think they'd play a key role in the discovery of the product." Very true. And that's key - to find a developer who shares your vision and passion. You might want to consider picking up a copy of Balsamiq Mockups (<a href="http://balsamiq.com/products/mockups>Link</a> http://balsamiq.com/products/mockups>Link</a>). You can quickly start mocking up the UI. You can even make it clickable and export one as a PDF (still clickable). Having a mockup will allow for you to add to and take away from the UI. It would also come in handy when you're ready to pass work to a developer. Having trouble finding tech savvy folks in Waco? Start a networking group, something akin to <a href="http://refreshingcities.com/>Refresh</a> http://refreshingcities.com/>Refresh</a>.
  - jrsmith1279 16y ago

noahc 16y ago

Is it a CRUD app? Forget the marketing, etc. Are you only Creating, reading, updating and deleting data? If that's the case pick a language + web framework and go to town nights and weekends.

jrsmith1279 16y ago
CRUD is a good part of it and I'm planning on using RoR, but there's also part of it that will interface with a POP3 server and do some regex on the messages that it grabs. The pricing model for the app will be a recurring monthly fee based on the number of clients the customer has signed up for the service. I'm still looking at options for handling the payment (recurly, braintree ..etc) and I've never built an app with a payment system, so I'm having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around that sort of thing.
- noahc 16y ago
  Just start building it. What's your MVP look like? Braintree makes the payments dead simple and for <1k you have someone integrate it all into your application. Don't worry about payments until you have the app built. It sounds like you're afraid to make mistakes on the engineering side. Just start building the thing and don't worry about engineering. You can always refractor code later!
  - jrsmith1279 16y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean by MVP. You're definitely right about me being afraid of making mistakes on the engineering side and now that you point that out I think you've helped me see that I just need to start building something instead of coming up with reasons why I can't or shouldn't.
    - noahc 16y ago
      Minimally Viable Product. Basically, "What is the least you can do and still create value?" is your MVP. If you can build this you can figure out what value you actually add and how to leverage what you built to add even more value. Most people get who their real customers are wrong.