To build a product, I look to see if I can get something out in a 2 week so I can at least dogfooding it. The purpose is I should be able to use it daily asap t

To build a product, I look to see if I can get something out in a 2 week so I can at least dogfooding it. The purpose is I should be able to use it daily asap to keep my momentum and solve my own pain point. Without seeing the pain, I'll easily lost motivation and give up. I also try to pick a product idea that emphasize my strong skill and less depend on my weak spot. A case study, for my email forwarding app https://hanami.run https://hanami.run 1. Create a PoC without any UI. As in, backend only, no database, just JSON so I can configure it. the app boot, load data from that JSON file. If I need to change anything, I edit that JSON file, The app reload it. 2. It works. Awesome. The core of business work. It's useful to my daily work. I can hook up domain to it and forward email 3. Started to get on front-end. Get a few friend, ask for their feedback. Setup a weekly sync with them. This is important. It forced to make progress 4. Get a google docs for what I should ship and what I achieve that week. 5. Continue use it daily. See pain point. Keep improving. Example, I never though I'll log email. But eventually I added that features and people love it. I never though I'll need an API for email forwarding but turn out many users want ability to curl and get email in JSON format As you can see, my product is heavily depended on my pain point. Without me having a need to use that product myself, I think it's hard to build. So my process is always to look for what I wish should existed and go do it, weekly sync, have a few friends to give you feedback/beta tester every week, congratulate small wins.