The saddest “just ship it” story (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#191

Post by cercatrova » Thu, May 12, 2022, 7:59 PM UTC

konschubert wrote: post #188

cercatrova wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make a website with an online builder and use their templates. For example: - Webflow: https://webflow.com/templates - SquareSpace: https://www.squarespace.com/templates - Shopify: https://themes.shopify.com/ I'd recommend Shopify, and a minimalist, light theme such as the one below, since your product is made of light wood. https://themes.shopify.com/themes/craft/styles/default?surfa...

I already use shopify for the shop page, https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-cale... But I’ve been wary of using it for the whole website since I didn’t want my whole page structure and content coupled to shopify. And I didn’t want it all to feel like a shopify store. But maybe that was a bad priority and I should just get over it. Thanks for the tip with the theme, btw

Yeah, at risk of sounding brash, I do think you should "get over it" as your main priority is to sell items, not to build a well-structured website in HTML. The latter is ancillary, merely a means to an end.

Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#192

Post by konschubert » Thu, May 12, 2022, 8:00 PM UTC

aidos wrote: post #190

konschubert wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Puh, I tried so hard with that website. I don't know, design and marketing is just sooo hard for me. Do you have a template that you think I should use? And do you know maybe somebody who could help me build a better landing page without costing me all my life savings?

Sorry, didn’t want to poo poo the whole thing. Don’t get down about it! This is an opportunity to rework the site so it works for you. As sibling comment says, use a website builder instead. Something like shopify will have everything you need (though I’m not massively familiar with it myself). Another suggestion I have is to focus on the target audience. I skimmed the doc you linked to about uploading images (couldn…

Nono, I am very grateful for your feedback! If my website is bad it means that it can be improved and then my conversions will go app and that's great news!

I don't define myself by my design skills so you didn't hurt any feelings :D

I am a bit wary of using Shopify for landing pages because I'm worried it will make it feel even more like a dropshipping enterprise...

But maybe that's the smaller problem if at least my website looks good then!

Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#193

Post by sharps_xp » Thu, May 12, 2022, 8:04 PM UTC

pflenker wrote: post #3

A big fallacy that I always see - and that is implied by this post - is that the work ends after shipping, a.k.a. "build it and they will come". That doesn't happen any more. So after you "ship" it, you need to promote it, advertise it, create buzz around it and make people use it. And that is a totally different kind of beast than coding something. But on the flip side, if you develop a side project just for yoursel…

No post body was provided.

Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#194

Post by rawfan » Thu, May 12, 2022, 8:10 PM UTC

I built a really shitty version of linkedin for people in my school to stay in touch after graduation (in 1998 i think). People were really using it and pressing me to improve on it.

I just didn't care and at some time just deleted it (angering many friends). No regrets, though. I was definitely not ready to take the idea any further, back then.

Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#195

Post by brundolf » Thu, May 12, 2022, 8:23 PM UTC

I'm waffling on when to "ship" the programming language I've been working on for the past couple years. I think it could be something real and useful, but there are still things I want to add/redesign/fix before I officially thrust it out into the world as an alpha version.

But I'm worried about killing the initial spark of enthusiasm when people try to use it and it's still broken. Or when they start building on it and then I redesign some language feature and their code doesn't work in newer versions.

I wonder if it's a different question for something like a language, or whether I'm just getting sucked into the classic fallacy

Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#196

Post by hgomersall » Thu, May 12, 2022, 8:30 PM UTC

konschubert wrote: post #19

pflenker wrote: post #3

A big fallacy that I always see - and that is implied by this post - is that the work ends after shipping, a.k.a. "build it and they will come". That doesn't happen any more. So after you "ship" it, you need to promote it, advertise it, create buzz around it and make people use it. And that is a totally different kind of beast than coding something. But on the flip side, if you develop a side project just for yoursel…

Serious question, how do you know whether it's your product or your marketing that sucks? For example, I tried twitter ads for my product [1] and I got zero sales after spending $50. What are good marketing strategies for niche hardware products? [1] https://www.invisible-computers.com/

Hey, this is kind of cool! If only it supported caldav I might get one.

Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#197

Post by sam0x17 » Thu, May 12, 2022, 8:31 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #14

pflenker wrote: post #3

A big fallacy that I always see - and that is implied by this post - is that the work ends after shipping, a.k.a. "build it and they will come". That doesn't happen any more. So after you "ship" it, you need to promote it, advertise it, create buzz around it and make people use it. And that is a totally different kind of beast than coding something. But on the flip side, if you develop a side project just for yoursel…

> "build it and they will come" I also used to think that build it and they will come was a big fallacy, but it's not really. The fallacy is, "build it and the whole world will fight to get what you built". That sure won't happen by itself or by chance. But if you build something reasonably good, some people will come. That may not be enough for you to make a living out of it, but it will make it worthwhile. > Learni…

One thing I've found to not be fallacious is "if you don't want them to come, they will come". With open source this is so true. My projects that I don't want to actively maintain anymore are always the ones that generate lots of issues and pull requests and stars, versus the ones I actually use on a daily basis that no one but me cares about.

Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#198

Post by corobo » Thu, May 12, 2022, 8:33 PM UTC

Dave3of5 wrote: post #101

> I started building an app on 01.01.2018. It was New Year's Eve and we just had the crappiest night ever. Yes, imagine a night so bad that at midnight you decide "you know what, fuck it, I'm gonna work on WEB DEVELOPMENT". That bad. Am I the only one that actually enjoys development ? I do development for fun in my free time, often with things that are completely throw away.

There are multiple types of development

I LOVE tinkering with silly bots or automations I’ve come up with to solve a problem I’m having for sure! I’d happily chuck away a weekend even if it’s just preliminary work that ends up scrapped. This is fun!

I don’t love everything dev I do for pay, that often comes more under the “well, the bills do need paying..” category

Not because it’s bad or unethical or whatever, don’t get me wrong, it’s just going to be basically the same tasks I did for the last site. Not as fun.

Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#199

Post by hgomersall » Thu, May 12, 2022, 8:34 PM UTC

LVanguard wrote: post #80

I had this experience a couple of months ago when I noticed a gap in the shopify app ecosystem. I saw some comments discussing this need, found nothing in the store, and had a friend starting a shop that could potentially use it as well. Worked on the app for 2-3 months, polishing, coding, learning tailwind and a bit of formal UI design in the process. Kept thinking "It's not ready yet. Just needs this hook into the…

On the other hand, be pleased the thing you wanted was implemented and you have no hassle supporting it.

Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#200

Post by danenania » Thu, May 12, 2022, 8:34 PM UTC

brundolf wrote: post #195

I'm waffling on when to "ship" the programming language I've been working on for the past couple years. I think it could be something real and useful, but there are still things I want to add/redesign/fix before I officially thrust it out into the world as an alpha version. But I'm worried about killing the initial spark of enthusiasm when people try to use it and it's still broken. Or when they start building on it…

Shipping isn't a binary and it isn't something you can only do once. If the project is still very rough, "shipping" may just mean emailing it to 20 people you think might be interested. Getting reactions from real people is the key thing, not publicizing it far and wide--in many cases it is smart to wait on that until you've gone through a bunch of iterations with a small number of early users.

For example, you could post a link to your language right here. Not that many people will see it, but some of the ones that do may give you useful feedback and start keeping tabs on the project. There isn't much downside.