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It took 12 weeks to ship an MVP I thought would take 3

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Re: It took 12 weeks to ship an MVP I thought would take 3

#141

Post by username90 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #2

I can’t accurately estimate non-trivial software. I’ve never met anybody who can accurately estimate non-trivial software. I’ve never seen anybody claim to be able to accurately estimate non-trivial software. Yet for some reason people still insist that estimating non-trivial software is not only possible, but trivial.

It is possible that a project is non-trivial to you but trivial to someone else, then that someone else could properly estimate it. Also most software projects are trivial so I don't see why estimations would be impossible, it is not like your typical react app is going to push boundaries on research topics. They might push boundaries to mediocre developers though, in which case it is a non-trivial project for them.

I think the real reason estimations are hard is that basically every developer is working on projects too hard for them. Like, if you are so good at your current job that you can reliably churn out good solutions with ease then instead of just producing you would move on to do harder things for better pay.

Re: It took 12 weeks to ship an MVP I thought would take 3

#142

Post by defined »

kstenerud wrote: post #98

The thing about estimating is that you can't factor in the things you don't know: - The tool you planned to use has a bug/defect that blocks you. - The people who said they could give you some information you need, can't. - You misunderstood or were misled as to the capabilities of a tool you need. - The parts you need don't actually fit together as planned. - The documentation you were relying on is wrong. - A deliv…

This is great and tallies with my experience.

Re: It took 12 weeks to ship an MVP I thought would take 3

#143

Post by cameronbrown »

godzilla82 wrote: post #122
BurningFrog wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a great labor market. Don't be shy about quitting when things get cray-cray!

By we do you mean software engineering in general or bay area? Asking because most people commenting on hn tend to assume the entire universe is just the sf bay area.

Even non-bay area SWE in general is still much better than most other job types and probably much better when it comes to having a nice place to live anyway.

Re: It took 12 weeks to ship an MVP I thought would take 3

#144

Post by icebraining »

nl wrote: post #61
icebraining wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can break them down to such a lower granularity, doesn't that imply the software is trivial? To take an extreme example, how do you break down the software developed by Waymo?

If you can break them down to such a lower granularity, doesn't that imply the software is trivial? No it doesn't imply this. One granular piece of Waymo's software is "develop a component that understands the external environment as well or better than a human". It's easy to say that, and it's even relatively easy to break that down into risk scenarios etc. But developing it is.. non trivial. And there are parts in…

Right, I'm not saying they can't be broken down somewhat, but the parent comment said he broke then down until the tasks are trivial. I don't think that example is trivial! Or that it can be estimated to take up about a day.

Regardig the "research" vs "engineering", I don't think you can cleanly separate the two; many otherwise straightforward projects include a research component, even if it is just about using a new browser feature in a novel way, or some such.

Re: It took 12 weeks to ship an MVP I thought would take 3

#145

Post by AmericanChopper »

tsimionescu wrote: post #133
AmericanChopper wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re making radical changes to your design half way through, then you didn’t understand the problem you were trying to solve to begin with, and possibly didn’t define your requirements properly either. If small changes to your requirements mean you need to do significant redesign, then you didn’t design your solution properly. The most generous way to view what you described is that you’ve had to cancel your pro…

The problem I was alluding to is exactly one of requirements - requirements aren't always exact, and they may change in unexpected ways as time goes on. In my experience, this is relatively common when building products that have a long time to market: since there are no hard requirements to begin with, just guesses on what features would be useful to have, it is easy for different marketing and product people to hav…

What your describing is exactly the problem that decent planning solves. I can only imagine two possible reasons for the type of pivot you’re talking about. Either the problem you’re trying to solve has changed (not very likely), or your understanding of the problem has. You can avoid that, and all of the time you’ll waste, but simply investing the effort required to properly understand the problem up front. This is the reason I suspect that many successful founders are solving their own problems. They have some experience in some sector, know what problems it has, and bring a solution to market.

Re: It took 12 weeks to ship an MVP I thought would take 3

#146

Post by mathgladiator »

q-base wrote: post #138
mathgladiator wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the hard part, but this is why it requires an inordinate amount of time combined with short term tactical work to keep things running. Most work can fit within quarters and get executed quickly, but it takes something else to have long term vision. The discovery process was paying attention and looking at what is actually the goal, and it generally requires the discipline to slow down and focus on the future…

Completely off topic, but somehow I find a daily commute via boat seem like a nice and cosy way of going to work. Where did you go from and to, if you mind sharing?

I used to commute from Bainbridge Island to Seattle. It's not bad for a couple of years, but it starts to get old and isolating. It was very effective for some growth that I went through, but became an annoyance as my designs and ideas began to vastly overwhelm my ability to execute and lead a number of teams to execute.

Re: It took 12 weeks to ship an MVP I thought would take 3

#147

Post by mathgladiator »

tsimionescu wrote: post #133
AmericanChopper wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re making radical changes to your design half way through, then you didn’t understand the problem you were trying to solve to begin with, and possibly didn’t define your requirements properly either. If small changes to your requirements mean you need to do significant redesign, then you didn’t design your solution properly. The most generous way to view what you described is that you’ve had to cancel your pro…

The problem I was alluding to is exactly one of requirements - requirements aren't always exact, and they may change in unexpected ways as time goes on. In my experience, this is relatively common when building products that have a long time to market: since there are no hard requirements to begin with, just guesses on what features would be useful to have, it is easy for different marketing and product people to hav…

A key element in inexact requirements is usually the human surprise element. A key to some of my success is a bias on infrastructure which is more about physics rather than messy human clients. Physics is more predictable, and the messy human stuff I have to deal with is whether or not my solutions are palatable by developers.

Re: It took 12 weeks to ship an MVP I thought would take 3

#148

Post by davnicwil »

themmes wrote: post #131

Thanks for sharing, I just quit my sideproject after a year of coding and find posts like this helpful to learn from that experience. > Then I stopped, took a step back and looked at the product from the perspective of someone who would want to pay for it. Though I think this is dangerous advise. You do not know what this perspective is like (unless maybe when your product is a “scratching your own itch”-type product…

Thanks for saying that as it's basically the reason I wrote the post. Really good to share these lessons with fellow bootstrappers as so many of them are general and applicable between projects, even whole businesses.

Totally agree with what you're saying here and let's see, I might write another post in a few months essentially saying this was a mistake and a waste of time, but yeah if you're interested in seeing a comparison, check out the twitter account for the blog @zero_startup and you can see the old screenshots and the newer ones.

Re: It took 12 weeks to ship an MVP I thought would take 3

#149

Post by davnicwil »

jordiee wrote: post #111

Man your telling me. I planned on spending 4 months on https://appdoctor.io and ended up launching it after 1 year and 2 months.

Have heard so many stories like this. It's unbelievable how much longer these things can take compared to what you think at the idea stage. How's it going now?

Re: It took 12 weeks to ship an MVP I thought would take 3

#150

Post by mathgladiator »

qaq wrote: post #112

I think it depends I work on a large enterprise product we are generally within 20% of the estimate. If some prominent team members were not aggressive in planing that figure would be smaller. Average age on the team is over 40 avg experience around 20 years.

Experience makes a huge difference in planning simply due to know where all bodies are buried and where dead bodies will emerge.
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