Ask HN: How do you generally build a product? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How do you generally build a product?

#71

Post by kirso » Sat, May 08, 2021, 11:42 AM UTC

terminalserver wrote: post #37

Think of a product name. Buy the domain name. Launch a cloud linux server, install web server, database, application server. Configure it all up to talk to each other. Build the user creation and auth system. Implement email system for user emails. Start building the hardest bits of the application first, try to get a minimal end to end implementation of the system, iterate over the minimal version improving stuff un…

This :) Basically start from the end of this submission and you will get there in no time...

Re: Ask HN: How do you generally build a product?

#72

Post by saddington » Sun, May 09, 2021, 12:22 AM UTC

i've been building software as an engineer for 20+ years for big cos and indie projects.

... they all kinda start out the same:

![](https://yen.fm/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/3-steps-for-basic-...)

i essentially boil it down to 3 steps:

1. Customer sends you data… 2. You manipulate the data… 3. You send the data back to the customer…

this is how i start the process... i figure out the fundamentals.

a few examples:

Dating / Matching Service: - You send me your dating preferences (via form)… - I’ll manually sort / categorize / match you with the “best fit” (manipulating data)… - I’ll send you your match (and you’ll pay me)! Customer gets a potential match and you get paid.

Collecting, Delivering Daily Standup Notes: - You (team) sends me daily standup notes (via web form)… - I’ll auto-magically categorize notes into business unit (ops, dev, design, legal, marketing, etc)… - I’ll send you (the team) all the notes related to your specific business unit! Individuals and teams are updated, aligned, and they now have the necessary info to do their job well.

Blogging Publishing Template: - You create a simple form to capture blog post ideas… - I’ll sort it based on length and other metadata… - I’ll send you the template to use for your post (with API access?)! Customer get a “best practice” blogging template and you get a repeat customer (monetization)?

... so, that gets me a baseline of the problem, the customer, and a very basic product... this can oftentimes done with #nocode or with existing services... you can almost fake a lot of this in the beginning.

if you've got the customer and the value right... then you can iterate on the product, part #2 which was once a manual (or semi-manual process) and then you graduate or iterate or evolve or level-up the product to be more automated over time.

this is a land-war of sorts... and will take many attempts to get it right. don't give up.

ping me if you need anything: john [at] yen [dot] io

Re: Ask HN: How do you generally build a product?

#73

Post by anchit_rana » Sun, May 09, 2021, 12:51 PM UTC

jasfi wrote: post #51

nprateem wrote: post #40

TBH I've created so many things over the years I've learnt my lesson. Now, I always start with a marketing plan: * Who's your target market, and how big is it and what are they likely to pay? * What do they want? * How will you create value you can capture? * How will you reach them? * What's the competition? If you can't answer these or don't get decent answers, bin it and move on. It's easy as an engineer to build…

What your target market wants is not that easy to determine. I've heard the book "The Mom Test" is a good read to help with this. I've started reading it recently.

People never know what they want untill it's shown to them, show it to them and they want it. That's the plan Steve jobs followed and his company is still succeeding.