When your proof of concept turns out to be the core business
The intro
I got an idea, and if you know me well, you will know that I will try to build it. I’m like completely into it until someone will find it cool. 2 years ago its exactly what happened to me. I got a completely crazy idea that will made me work like 10 developers for a year but man .. having all the music events activity in a city into one app was something sooo cool that I was not giving up easily. But. It imply a massive algorithm and lot of research to accomplish that. So I did like every smart people do. the well known : proof of concept.
The action
The nice part of the story is that we succeed ! cool man, we got your idea. Its working and people like it. Now can you make it work… (pause). I’m like what ? I’ve work a year like a %%))% and you ask me to redo it .. you feel me. I guess its a good sign, people care enough to want it work better. I think every project is different but I’m kind of confident that most people do this and drop when things get serious. From a dev perspective, its a complete turn off, but in the same time its exciting.. strange feeling ein.
3 things I can share with you
- Dont take the most trendy platform that just came out just to look indie. Choose wisely, like your old man could tell you : Old and mature is a better bet then young and pretty. Shit hit the fans quickly
- Try to make your brand expansion independent from tech. If all of your users and partners rely on a not so ready technology, they will have a ok experience, and your brand can be affected. use traditional way of building your brand independently from the tech road map.
- Find a way to move fast from a proof of concept to a viable business. Use often the word proof of concept when you talk with people that dont know the impact of that concept to remember them what it is and to not expect nothing else from it. Build & test fast, when you got the data you needed. Never built on top of it. Build something from the ground up with a zero bad experience end to end. Your users deserve it.
Never stop building great stuff. The world needs you.
J
