Introduction

It has been a while since my last post, I took weeks 6 and 7 off for the lunar new year celebration and it was a great one. I have been thinking a lot during the break, and I realized that my progress has been super slow, it is week 8 now and I am still working on the authentication flow, there is no doubt that I have learned a lot throughout the process, but something just doesn't feel right, I still got no idea of how the core features will look like, the whole picture of the app is still very vague. So, here are what I have done during week 8:

1. Switch to Tailwind UI
2. Read Getting Real by Basecamp

Switching to Tailwind UI

Why the switch when I got a free Tailkit license? I have been thinking a lot about the possibilities of me making a living working as an indie developer, there are quite a few ideas inside my head, and the Tailkit license that I got was only for single use. Was it an impulse purchase? It might be, but my reasoning was that with the Tailwind UI license I can use it for all my upcoming projects. It wasn't cheap ($279) after the conversion to my local currency (RM1265), but I think it is worth the investment.

Key takeaways from Getting Real by Basecamp

I realized my progress has been really slow on building this app, and I have been nitpicking a lot on very small matters like how a form should look when there're errors. It has been 8 weeks since I started, and I am nowhere close to building the core features. Hence, I am going to change my approach, and I think Getting Real is a good book to learn from on how to build a product. Here are some of my key takeaways broken down into building the app and launching and marketing.

(a). Building the app

1. Build less, it is better for the app to have half features than with half-assed features.
2. Fix time and budget but flexible scope.
3. Ignore details early on, work from large to small.
4. Don't waste time on problems I don't have yet like scaling.
5. Make opinionated software, make decisions for your customers, sometimes too many preferences aren't a good solution.
6. Get something real up and running quickly to boost my motivation to keep building it.
7. Epicenter design, start from the core of the page and build outward.
8. Always start with interface first, interface is what people see and what I am selling.
9. Go from brainstorming to sketches to HTML to coding.
10. Always design with the three states in mind, regular, blank and error states.
11. Make signup and cancellation a painless process.
12. Copywriting is interface design, every letter matters.

(b). Launching and marketing

1. Have a powerful promo site that includes overview, tour of the app, screen captures and videos, manifesto, case studies, forum, pricing & sign up page and also blog.
2. Hollywood launch, go from teaser to preview to launch.
3. Promote through education, share your knowledge with the world.
4. Provide inline help and FAQs for the customers.
5. Use forums to let customers help each other.
6. Keep the post coming be it changelogs, blogs, new features and etc to show that the product is alive.
7. Write stories, not details when promoting the app.
8. Provide a channel for customers to ask anything and answer them quickly.
9. Promote upgrade opportunities inside the app.

Conclusion

That's all for now. It's nice to be back on this journey, and I am super excited to try out the getting real way of building a product. I have had enough rest, it's SPRINTING TIME now!