4 Things to do before hiring a developer

(It will save you thousands)

Kaitlyn Wojtaszek
Nov 7 · 6 min read

In the beginning stages of our business, we were not detailed enough in our requirements and even our understanding of what we wanted. To give you perspective, we still had about 10–12 pages worth of ideas (vetted them out as per my first article), but we did not define the vision for 5–10 years down the road and didn’t have a proper roadmap of how we were going to release our features iteratively. To our knowledge, we knew enough about what we wanted so went ahead and hired developers. Over time, it became apparent that we were not building to Stefan’s (our CEO) product vision and needed to start fresh. This article will hopefully give you the tools to design what you want your business to look like now, in the future, and also the ability to elaborate on feature details to minimize changes down the road.


  1. Product objective:

For this exercise, you want to write down the summary and objective for your application including what it will do, why, and who would be the typical user. Also, it would be good to mention the importance of platform availability for your product (ex: investment banks will pay big bucks to keep their website up and running 24/7, even during times of high traffic), if security is a major concern, and the quality expectations. The purpose of this section is to provide a high-level understanding of the purpose of the project which can be used as a quick blurb to send out when hiring someone to work with you.

This is an example of a product objective for my company, Moonllight:

is a premium fantasy soccer platform. We are re-envisioning the way that fantasy soccer is experienced today by offering an enhanced user interface, integrated leagues, new features and game modes, more in-depth data accompanied by an advanced scoring algorithm, and expert-written content for our users.

Through our website, users will be able to create leagues with their friends in two different game modes (classic and draft), pick players from the top four leagues, transfer/trade these players with other users throughout the season, and analyze players with the data we provide through graphics and visuals.

Our premium fantasy soccer website will be above the rest and will give soccer fans another reason to obsess over. The typical user will be between the ages of 18–30 and will live in Europe or the US. Our website will have peaks of usage at both the start and end of each gameweek.

2. Product vision:

The product vision will describe the bigger picture for your business as well as the end-goal. This needs to be understood from the beginning for your developers to align with the vision and, therefore, will design your platform for your product’s future needs (i.e. scalability). Don’t get so hung up on this as it will probably change in the future, but it’s still good to think long-term.

’s vision is to be the first fantasy soccer website to spark the new era of fantasy soccer fanatics. Initially, we will offer the top four European leagues, but over time we will introduce other leagues around the world to grow our following. We will also introduce a mobile app, new gamified features, an additional game mode, and integrate with Rotowire to give our users the best fantasy soccer experience on the market.

Business vision:

This discusses how you will monetize your website/application. You should spend a decent amount of time brainstorming various revenue streams. The key here is to diversify how you make your money so you decrease your risk and have continual cash flow throughout the year. After all, you might make most of your revenue through a secondary channel that you weren’t expecting, but you don’t know until you test it out! Initially, our business model included only one revenue stream (user subscriptions of $10/year) and almost a year later we realized this wasn’t a viable solution so we adapted our model to the following:

business model resembles a freemium offering where users can sign up and play with their friends for free, but will be charged a premium if they want access to advanced data and game packs. We will also display sponsored content which will be nicely integrated throughout the site so it doesn’t take away from the user experience.

Here are a few ideas when brainstorming for different revenue streams: ads, in-app purchases, merchandise, membership clubs for exclusive content, selling text-link ads, using social media as a platform to promote other people’s content, etc..

3. Product roadmap:

I think it’s safe to assume as you’re starting your business, you won’t have unlimited capital, and for that reason, you want to build your product iteratively. Ideally, you should have conducted market research to have a good understanding of the demand for your product as well as insights into which features are critical to build out for the first release. Similarly, you should conduct market research after every release so you shape your product to the user’s needs.

The product roadmap is a plan of attack for how you will develop and enhance your product over time. This can be a very challenging step for new entrepreneurs, especially if they are the visionary behind it all. It’s hard to delay developing those great ideas, but I promise, building out what you think is the most perfect website/application on the first go is going to cost you thousands and probably isn’t what your users want — it’s what you want. So do yourself a favor and hold off for a few more months until you launch the prototype, then collect feedback, and finally if you see some traction then go ahead and build out the next feature! This was an area where Stefan, our dreamer and visionary, struggled as he couldn’t part ways with his great ideas! At the end of the day, if you don’t have the money to build it, you’re forced to temporarily part ways anyway, so prioritize what you want :)

When creating your product roadmap think MVP (minimal viable product). This is the absolute minimum you need to launch a working, differentiated product. The key word here is differentiated because this initial launch should still have the unique features your competition lacks… or the feedback you get from users will be along the lines of: “why would I use this product when it already exists?”.

So now to create the product roadmap, take that initial list of all your vetted ideas () and combine it with any new ideas that were generated through the previous exercises (product objective, product vision, and business objective), and prioritize everything with “MVP”, “nice to have”, or “I guess it can wait”. Be honest with yourself and keep in mind the cost of each additional feature to build out this product. If it can’t stand on its own after you spent the initial investment then it’s not going to get you anywhere because (1) you can’t earn revenue from it and (2) you can’t get feedback from it since it’s unusable.

Example roadmap for Moonllight:

4. Feature list:

The feature list is taking your roadmap and adding more color to it. For now, all you must focus on are the features in your first release. To do this, detail out the different elements, how the components interact with each other, any functionalities, any backend logic involved, and what data should be displayed. You should have enough information on the feature list so a designer can pick it up and build out a wireframe.

Example Moonllight feature: Player Transfer

Player transfers allow a fantasy manager to swap players from their team for other available players in the free-agent market. The user will be able to view their current team, number of free transfers, available team budget, and also a table that shows the available players to choose from. In the table, the user can search for a player or filter on player position, league, or value. Once the user decides which player they want to swap out, he/she will remove the player from their team and then select another player in the same position of equal or lesser value. The user’s team budget will adjust accordingly after the transfer and then once finished, they can save the changes.


A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming an Entrepreneur

People are full of great ideas. Many are sitting on a few right now, but are too scared to turn them into reality because they don’t know where to begin. This is a guide for all the entrepreneurs who don’t know what they don’t know and need some guidance in getting going.

Kaitlyn Wojtaszek

Written by

A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming an Entrepreneur

People are full of great ideas. Many are sitting on a few right now, but are too scared to turn them into reality because they don’t know where to begin. This is a guide for all the entrepreneurs who don’t know what they don’t know and need some guidance in getting going.

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