Think very basically. Just program with the tools you have and do research as you need to implement something you aren't familiar with. If it is your first time

Think very basically. Just program with the tools you have and do research as you need to implement something you aren't familiar with. If it is your first time writing a site, you may end up having to scrap it and go to the beginning (with experience you may be able to come up with a rough plan beforehand). Facebook started out as a crude website and Zuckerberg even wrote a blog post admitting that. If you go to archive.org and look it up then obviously the creator had a limited skillset. Don't get overwhelmed. Come up with an idea. If your mind wanders about all of the future possibilities, write them all down and then say, "At the core, what is this site?" Program what that core is. In your example, it is just what you said: start with creating user accounts, then allow users to have profile pages, then maybe comments, and finally be able to add friends. Just start coding and you will learn a lot.