Here is the truth, it's one thing to think about an idea for a website or an app. But it's whoooole different thing when you want to turn it into a finished product. When I decided I want to start on my own project 3 months ago with my friend. I had to do all kinds of studying and researching until I finally had a solid & a clear idea.
Like many of you I had the issue of starting something but not finishing it. Mainly because of life with work & college. Or because midway through my work, I'm not seeing a good end for this idea. But this time I have a clear idea & a clear goal, and I plan to see the end of it. Which is I decided that this time I'm gonna write a weekly blog about the progress we're making to give myself deadlines and to stay motivated 🤘
Now what is that idea we are working on you ask ? that is to be revealed at a later stage 😉, until we at least finish stage one of the project.
But for now I'm gonna start talking about the thing you all came here for cause I'm seeing so many people falling into it the same mistakes I fell into. This may not be a very helpful article for veterans in building their own product, but you still might get a good info out of it here & there. So let get to it with the most important rule first !
1- Always Remind Yourself Of Your Goal
why are you doing this ? what is your goal with this project ?
Is it to grow it and make it your dream company ?
Is it to help with a human goal for a cause you believe in ?
Or perhaps you just want to build something that you can sell to someone later on.
Through the journey of building your product, you'll need to always remind yourself of why are doing this in the first place, cause getting caught in the moment and forgetting about your original goal is A LOT easier than you think.
2- The Product Is Only Half Of The Work
A person might think that the idea of a social media app for chefs to show of their work online is great idea that'll sell it self by itself, BUT...that's not how things work in the real world.
How are you sure there is customer base for this ?
Is your app local or international ?
How will reach the chefs ? And how will convince them to at least try your app ??
And IF they tried it. How will you convince them keep using it ??
What will make chefs who are already online switch to your app ?
How will you get the chefs that aren't online to start using your app ?
How will you make a profit from your app ??
Is your app gonna include a B2B model (Business to Business) or just a B2C model (Business to Customer) ?
etc ? etc ?? etc ???
I know that many of us just bring this down to one answer
"Man. I'm Developer, not a Business Man"
And while that is true, To Some Extent. But when most of us think about starting their own project. We think about a project that we can build by ourselves, or with other developers. So there is nobody but ourselves to research and start learning the other skills a successful business needs before we think about about turning our idea into a project and than into a product.
So let's start with the other step that should come before writing any code...
2- Market Research
You remember the first question I asked you
How are you sure there is customer base for this ?
That is where market research comes in. It is simply the process of doing a study on the customer base & the market you wish to target
Some basic things you need to know about your customer base are:
- Age
- Gender
- Profession
- Place of Residency
- Interests
- How much are they willing to spend
And the basic things you need to know about the market you are targeting are (which is restaurants in our above example):
- Market Growth
- Market Share
- Market Properties (Pros & Cons of the market)
- Market Competitors
- Market Opportunities
This video will give a good general idea about what market research is, how to conduct it, and why you should do it.
youtube.com/watch?v=b-hDg7699S0
3- Write it down ! write it down !! write it dowwwn !!!
Here is the thing. there a huuuuge difference between having an idea in your head and between writing that idea into simple sentences other people can understand. That is because an idea in your head is always vague and incomplete until you start writing it down. And what should you write about you ask ?
Everything !
Everything about your idea that you can think of. You can start by making an overview and split it into the following sections:
- Product Summary
- Targeted Audience
- Features
- Theme
- Income methods
- Used Technologies
As you write, you'll slowly start having a clearer image about what you want your finished product to be. And as you write you'll start noticing things like:
Wait, am I targeting new chefs or veterans ?
If the chef is already busy with his dishes and restaurant, how will I get him/her to upload posts online ?
This will cut soooo much from your developing time, cause you'll set everything down from the start, instead of discovering them as you code. Which can lead to so many mistakes & re-writing of the code.
4- Research, Write, Repeat
Right now you might be thinking "Isn't this step taking too much time ?" And my answer to that is YES. That is because it's the hardest and the most important step of starting any project. And why some people will go as far as 1 year of studying & researching before they start working on anything. So you need to know as much as you can from the get go.
Through the process of researching & writing. Your Idea might form a different shape or approach from what it originally was supposed to be. For example your chefs app might turn into a cooking teaching app. In which case you need to conduct more market research to see what cooking teaching apps there is out there. So it's not gonna be enough to conduct one market research. you'll need to conduct more researches and keep writing until you've known everything you can.
Sadly, I couldn't cover all the point I can think of turning your idea into a product in this blog. But don't worry, like I said I plan to make a weekly blog starting now so hopefully I'll be able to cover the rest of the point in later blogs. And hopefully, I'll be able to share the project we're currently working with all of you very soon
Thank For Reading 😊
This image is from unsplash unsplash.com/photos/lB9ylP8e9Sg