Ask HN: How do you generally build a product?

Okay, so, you've got ideas in your to-do list probably if you're anything like me.

I want to know how do you find the time to build that idea out and even during that process of building, do some of the good ideas get left out? Is it partially because you don't have the right kind of developers to work with? If you had your developers friends working with you, would you get more products built?

How do you tackle this problem generally and ultimately, what does the process ends up looking like when you turn that to-do list idea into a product?

For me, part of it is establishing MVP. Software can always be improved, that's why companies still have massive development arms years after launch.

Establish the minimum features for your product, build it, then talk to your customers to find out what they want improved.

Work a little bit on the project every day. Consistency is key. Even if it just means developing for an hour or two after your day job. It sounds cliche, but 2 hours - 5 days a week for a year adds up to 520 hours you can build your product with. It's how my business got started.

Focus on building and releasing your minimum viable product as soon as possible. This will also help you gain some internal motivation. As soon as you have people using your product and start getting feedback, you'll feel that the project has a life of it's own and you'll just want to keep working on it more.

Have fun, and pick an idea that doesn't feel like work (too much) :)

I wouldn't tackle it generally. A lot of products are like building a house. You don't generally build a house. It's a very specific thing that encompasses many different fields of expertise. You can build a house and sell it by yourself, of course. But nobody here is going to be able to tell you how in a single forum comment.

Suffice to say you need to learn to become a developer, a project manager, a product owner, an architect, a systems engineer, a customer support specialist, a salesman, a marketer, a financial officer, and an executive officer. If you are good at learning on your feet, you will learn just enough of these things to get your product running and make some money, from a month to a year or more. It all depends.

If I have a good enough idea for a project, I just kinda start making it. No plan. Just trial and error, trying to get what's in my head on to the screen.

This is generally an extremely inefficient way of making a project since planning is usually a good idea, but it's just the way I do things, so I've embraced just starting and seeing where it goes.

I work on projects every day after work for about 2 hours a night, and on weekends for about 4 hours a day. Many times I don't feel like working on my project but I'll still work on it anyways. Nothing better to do.

I always try to make the absolute simplest product I can get away with as I have lots of things I want to make, and after months and months of working on a project I get bored. But... I make sure to always finish what I start.