How to start your MVP?
Do not start by the code
Despite having built up several projects, I realized this was the mistake I was doing, a huge one. I was choosing a tech and going with the flow. Except the code should be a tool you use at the very end, like a small detail in the project. Coding isn’t hard nor challenging after a few years of practice.
That’s what I had mastered the most, so I purposely removed it totally from the decision taking. The code or technology is not what leads the idea, but a simple tool to make it happen. I now think you shouldn’t go through the idea depending of the tech, ever.
I hear you already mumbling “yeah I do that already, it’s no news” — but are you? Do you have everything, like literally every single details of the app thought through before you start to code? I believed I was, but after the completion of Alfred, I understood I was in fact very wrong.
This time, I decided to change the way I do things. I enforced myself to think of the code as insignificant, because it’s not what should be challenging in there, and my past projects clearly taught me that.
What I’ve learnt from experience
There were a time in my life where I was really angry about my projects, and not only the tech ones. I made a few companies, some had decent success, but eventually someone was gonna fuck it up given enough time.
I got screwed thousands of euros by a commercial partner when I was in my early 20s, it destroyed [our] hope of web agency. That’s when I learnt people will try to screw you over if they can, and there’s no kindness in business, unless you’re indeed lucky.
It’s a war, where people bet you won’t go to court because you’re young and naive, so they can just play and trash you afterwards — making thousands on the way. You’ve no chill anymore once you live it yourself.
Another time — and another story — an associate camouflaged his finance management incompetence to all of us for a full year of activity. Sadly, he was handling the expenses and burn rate. We discovered he had made vanished tenth of thousands from our growth, but it was too late to fix it. No money, no pivot: if the market fades out you can’t do shit and the company dies, and it did.
My last entrepreneur oriented attempt was taking shares on an already existing company and try to “save them” from their technical debt. Well, I raised the technical level, but those guys ended up sucking out my energy for a shit salary telling me “how much millions” my shares were worth. They went bankrupt after a first seed funding. A true shit show, but I did my part.
That was the last time I tried to get involved in anything out of my control. I refused equities in the following company I worked for, and they ended up raising millions; you heard that right. Talk about luck.
You must think “fuck this guy is either incredibly unlucky, or oblivious of his own incompetence” and well, I didn’t talk about it, but I fucked up many times too, it’s no secret. I had times were I did very poorly technically, and other times were I tried to sell shit I was unable to sell, but I knew how to fail fast at least, thanks Sergei.
The only company with which I made real money was 100% commercial / no tech involved and without any associate. I had the control over everything and the “vision” was clear and simple, and I believe this as an important detail.
When the time came to scale it up, I didn’t find anyone to help me grow it. After checking carefully the market and what I could do with all this, I decided it’s just easier to sell it instead. I would eventually make something else — or so I thought.
There’s luck, but not only
My short storytelling was to put in evidence the fact there’s a huge luck factor in the making of a successful business, and this can be really depressing. You repeat yourself “what if” many times thinking of your failures.
It’s just so hard to find skilled people who are willing to spend their energy on your project, because it’s not their dream, no one really gives a fuck about your project, because it will never be their even if it’s “cool”. Also, talented people are a minority in this world and they cost money, so you don’t usually end up with those ones off the bat, unless you fell in the right environment, at the right moment.
Once again, luck is involved but — good for us — not only.
Despite life being a little bitch, you can enforce your luck. I was talking about how a MVP should be thought through and well done. I believe making the best out of a small product will increase the chance of success of the idea tremendously. Even if everyone sucks around you, you might “get it right” and make such an impact in the market that the correct people eventually see it and get involved.
There are people who release shit products at perfect timing, it sells and does a snow ball effect, they end up with millions in their hand and a wonderful story. Sometimes you got a bunch of highly skilled people at the same university, doing the same project, and it’s a huge success.
Lots of people think it’ll happen to them — I’ve met a few — they will be the next AirBnB by doing a bad copy and invading the market, they propose 3% for the tech guy and are done with it.
Sorry, but it’s very unlikely to happen unless you’ve got the right network, at the right time and get some external help. The odds are clearly against you, so most people must act smarter than that. I’ve tried and failed enough to understand I must enforce my success. Not only work harder, but smarter.
What are your weak points?
I figured I need to focus on my weak points, and improve them to help me raise this luck factor. Seems obvious, right? Well think of it for a minute; people don’t really like to work on their weak points, because — yes — they feel weak.
If you’re a very good coder, you’ll focus on the code instead of improving everything else, but does code really matter at this point? I think the more clear the vision is, and the better you know your target, the more your chance of success grows.
My two biggest weak points are marketing, and graphic design — target and vision — not that I’m horrible in those, but not really good either. I tried to improve them a few times in my life, but each time I was meeting someone from those fields, they acted like it works through some kind of black magic. I now think that’s freaking bullshit.
