What are the challenges of developing your project? 🤔

@sreekanth850 Me too. I hope I get there. It's just two of us so far (with amazing help from advisors). Any tips?

@celyn_brown hang out in Twitter communities, GitHub and LinkedIn. Prepare a good pitch, engage in discussion and if you find ideal guys just shot them a PM. You may get 100s of rejections which may demotivate you. Don't worry this is how it works all the way. This is toughest part of the startup journey.

@celyn_brown @sreekanth850 Any community recommendations? Indiehacker, PH, and hackernews are the ones off the top of my head. I'm trying to compile a list of these for other people looking to partner up! This has also been a huge thorn in my side.

@celyn_brown @skellskellskell i think twitter and LinkedIn are more good in finding people. twitter had lot of communities where you can understand by looking to their profile and tweets. Engage and post content related to your domain then slowly started engaging with like-minded people and then start asking. It will not happen in a day will take some months if you go organic. Indie hacker and hn, well I am not well with those frankly.

@celyn_brown @skellskellskell @sreekanth850 Do you use personas as a guide when finding users who will use your services? Or are you looking for something random?

@dwayne_charrington2 I also have a tendency jump from idea to idea. But I think it's great to come up with so many ideas. Do you ever run out of ideas?

@814_kimura86 Up until recently because of the pandemic, I found my creativity suffered greatly to the point where I stopped coming up with ideas. It's almost like my brain stopped working and it scared me. However, once I became aware of my block, I worked through it. I just recently started a free ideas newsletter I am going to grow over time in hopes it stops me getting blocked ever again. I go through periods where I'll have an explosion of ideas and other times where maybe only one or two every so often. I've never actually run out of ideas that I can think of.

@dwayne_charrington2 Thanks👍 When you come up with an idea, do you start developing it right away? Or do you start doing user interviews to see the value of the idea?

@terrytanys That's also something I struggle with. Some time ago I was also solo working in my idea and had moments of "this is genius" and "this is terrible". My solution to that was to clearly separate decision from execution. One day I would site and calmly assess the situation and decide a course of action. After that I would code without second guessing, doesn't matter what's happening. After some days or weeks I would look at the situation again and reassess it.

@luis_martins I like this idea of separating planning and execution. 👍 Otherwise it's easy for me to keep doubting myself during the execution, reducing the efficiency and killing the fun.

@terrytanys @luis_martins @dmitru Thank you for your comments 😄 When I have an idea, I think "This is great!". But I'm having trouble attracting users at all when I launch. How do you measure the correctness of your ideas?

@814_kimura86 Try to create your MVPs in a very short disposable and digestable format. Then give people an easy way to provide feedback. Then reach your network. This way you should be able to iterate really fast, and get lots of feedback. Now it's a theory not backed by my own experience (yet), but I've seen it working for others (I believe so!). Also not saying it's easy to do. For example, there are folks who do MVPs in Google Docs. Btw, I think Ship looks promising for that, solving all of the above points 🤔

@dmitru Thank you for your comment !! Creating an MVP is great because you can release it in the shortest amount of time and get feedback quickly! However, the various comments on this discussion show that it is very difficult to get feedback from users. What are you doing to acquire early users?

@jefferson_jadulco I feel the same 😫 I sometimes let my anxiety get the better of me and close the service I developed without showing it to people. Does that concern get resolved when you get feedback? Or is there some other cause?

@alex_papageorge Thank you for your comment. What do you do that distracts you from the core problem your solution solves?

@jeremy_fabatz When I think about architecture from a long-term perspective, I sometimes find that I actually didn't need it after the launch. In your experience, which is better, releasing small or thinking about implementation thoughtfully?

@814_kimura86 Definitely with you here. Often times the small fix/feature is sufficient and is way more efficient in terms of time/effort. Thanks for the validation!

@pimminderman1 Does this mean that you are creating too many features?

@814_kimura86 No, it means that I don't what tools are the best to get started. I am using know Google sheets, but what is a good landing tool? And how do I know it's good before start paying for it?

@kennywu2002 How do you do initial user acquisition?

@814_kimura86 still learning haha, but my go-to strategies aren’t building a hype + slamming an offer at them, or taking in users for free before marketing, and then advertising once you have happy users.

@sagunsh What kind of feedback is real feedback for you, and from whom?

@suvindhs I agree! In order to figure out the product-market fit, it must be used by users. How difficult is it for you to find users?

@alex_gorman I am working on it, check it out and let me know if it is too early: https://www.producthunt.com/post...

@matt_nguyen1 That's interesting 👍 It's hard to have meetings in different time zones. What does it mean to you to work efficiently?

@814_kimura86 i guess we're trying to get more comfortable with working asynchronously on projects. I feel like working asynchronously, there is less formal "accountability" so things get easily lost

@fritzly How have you found users who are willing to pay you? Many developers who have participated in this discussion, including myself, have had challenges finding early users.

@814_kimura86 You have to dig deep to find your sales/promotion skills. But maybe don't think of it that way. Just be super simple and clear in your communication. Then identify multiple channels - direct sales, network promotion, PR, social, etc. Experiment with a few things and see what works. If that does not get the results then find a team member/co-founder who has more experience getting customers.

@luis_martins What are some of the reasons that prevent development from proceeding? You're busy with your day job, and other high priority tasks have come up ?

@skellskellskell Have you been working with your members to develop the project so far? How do you always find your members?

@asaiandrade The security challenge is a difficult one. Does the fact that there are security issues mean that many users are already using it?

@annoup Is there anything you do consciously to marketing and find early users?

@814_kimura86 Lots of cold messaging via email, twitter, and some other places. Trying to gain visibility through websites like ProductHunt and others. Haven't pitched as much to news rooms / journalist agencies yet. Any ideas?

@ryan_st_dare I would like to see how this product can be used. Right now I only have an idea of the product itself. For example, if you want to wash your hands outside, I wanted to see how you can use this product, whether it's an image or a video 👍

@814_kimura86 Thanks for spending the time. I do 3D animation myself, but I'm on a 2011 computer; so I'm going to try create a video. Unfortunately, I was hoping to raise capital in the concept phase, so I could afford to get the prototype made, or atleast have the surety that I could get one made without running at a loss, and film a advert with that, in which one would see the product in use. I have just about everything in order to do so, just not the funds. The rubber-silicon band has an extruding chamber, that when pressed dispenses the sanitizer to the tips of the fingers. A video would show how effortless and ergonomic it is. Thanks for your time! I appreciate your feedback.