71–80 of 171 posts
I have been there before and I think it's demotivating because reality is setting in. Before you release you can stay under the delusion that anything is possible. As soon as you release you are forced to deal with problems that aren't fun anymore. Marketing, advertising, people telling you your product isn't very good, people telling you they like your product but then not buying it and using alternatives instead. T…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd just block Europe instead...
That _helps_, but I'm a British/EU citizen, living in Australia, who regularly VPNs through servers in Singapore, Tokyo, and the US. I'm still protected by GDPR. (Personally, I reckon that's quite an overreach by EU lawmakers, but that's what they've chosen to do, in response to equivalent or worse "overreach" by internet companies trading in personal information...)
You have been working for 2 years and have no customers? I guarantee that you're thinking about your problem wrong. There are things that people want to do that you don't know yet. There are things that are obvious to you about how to do things with your software that nobody will be able to figure out. You won't be able to learn anything about that until you have real people using it. Go out. Find a potential custome…
When your project is finished, the dream is dead and the reality is born. The death of a dream is like the death of a friend. It's probably been with you for a long time -- longer even than the length of the project. A dream is the manifestation of what's possible. When it is over, the possible diminishes very quickly and you are left with what actually is. Will people respond well to your project -- in the dream sta…
Best comment I've read all week.
Introspection and all the thinking you're doing is important and good and will help you overall find happiness so keep that up -- but it's not going to help you ship this. Just make a list of bugs and cross them off. Ship a V1.
If it's usable now just release it. Call it a beta, call it early access, whatever. You'll have a few weeks to just react and absorb feedback and that will help you decide what you want to do with it, learn what the market looks like, learn what the users want.
Especially with something like a creative or animation tool, you're not going to get people knocking down your door and throwing money at it overnight. But if a few people find it expressive and useful, find those users, support them and their work will bring others.
You have been working for 2 years and have no customers? I guarantee that you're thinking about your problem wrong. There are things that people want to do that you don't know yet. There are things that are obvious to you about how to do things with your software that nobody will be able to figure out. You won't be able to learn anything about that until you have real people using it. Go out. Find a potential custome…
I don't think this kind of reasoning applies to all projects. If you're doing something without the pressure to make money you can make something that you're proud of. Of course, this can only be a side project unless you're already rich. The one thing I know is that if you don't love what you do, it's the same wether you own some super hot startup or you write forms for some accountant firm.
This is WHY the idea of having an MVP and iterating has won so thoroughly.
How's that novel coming? Almost done, I'll bet. https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/12/how_to_create_motiva...
> More concretely, they are a form of self doubt not about the success of executing the act which is in your control-- the writing of the book, the asking the girl out-- but of being able to manage the consequences which are not-- the publishing of the novel, sustaining a relationship/finding a burn unit.
Brilliant article. Hits home. Thanks.
Because the bulk of the interesting work has been done, and now all that's remaining is the finicky, nitpicking tasks that you've been putting off doing for the whole project.
> though I would be happy with 1500 bucks a month
I wish you the best of success, but please be prepared that you will not likely reach this goal for some time, if ever (although I hope I'm wrong).
Everything else you are worried about (surpassing parents, more people becoming involved, losing creative direction etc) is putting the cart before the horse. It's far more likely that the project will fail to meet your expectations. Especially if you've been working on it for 2 years and haven't had any customers validating your work in that time.
I don't mean to be a downer, but that's the reality of most projects.
When your project is finished, the dream is dead and the reality is born. The death of a dream is like the death of a friend. It's probably been with you for a long time -- longer even than the length of the project. A dream is the manifestation of what's possible. When it is over, the possible diminishes very quickly and you are left with what actually is. Will people respond well to your project -- in the dream sta…
Not sure if this is what OP is experiencing or just some 90/10 etc rule about the last parts being the hardest parts. Starting a greenfield project you can make massive progress quickly. Polishing it is slow.
That is, when you make a small personal work, you can leverage all your technical skills towards the goal. And you can redesign the problem to fit your skills. You get to try anything just for the sake of learning.
But if you intend to build a whole business, the leverage - and hence the techniques - come from a different, more abstract place. The SV startup model that is often on display in HN is based on leveraging lots of capital and the existing Bay Area tech ecosystem to build very large, capable organizations in a short span of time. That takes a very broad skillset and it isn't 100% based on the founding team's own skills, but rather on the strength of the connections and recruits they can get as they try to build "business machinery". An organization is ultimately a designed thing, just like a product.
When a codebase gets past the prototype/greenfield phase and becomes a grind of churning out features, bugfixes and optimizations, sales, product marketing and customer support, it is likely to escape the grasp of your existing techniques, because - unless you're extremely selective about what you're aiming for - that kind of breadth is going to be better suited towards an organization with defined roles and specialists than a lone developer who is wearing every hat every day. There's both a technical burden and an emotional burden involved and most people, most of the time, do better by sharing it, hence the common advice to have co-founders.
That said, plodding along for long periods with slow progress is hardly unusual regardless of how you scoped the project or who you got involved. Sometimes you have a technique handy that makes it go smoothly, but oftentimes it is just a grind and you have to commit to the grind to get the learning done and even know what you're doing wrong. It's no different from training your body or mind in other contexts: some things come easily, others don't. Try to go from strength to strength, but don't despair when you have to do something you find painful and stressful.