In the next fortnight I’ll be releasing Plan Lab online marketing plan software. I started development back in February, logging onto freelancer.com, posting a description of what I wanted to build and then choosing a developer from India to make it happen.
Along the way I’ve learnt a hell of a lot. These are the 21 most important lessons that I’ve made in development, business, entrepreneurship and project management from creating my first product.
- Building a consultancy when you’re great at your profession is easy. Building a product isn’t.
- Developers just want to get paid.
- The majority of Indian’s don’t value the importance of design and the user experience.
- If they say “it is clear” after you explain something to them, it usually isn’t.
- If it’s a 3-month project, expect 6-9 months.
- You’re to blame for most of the time delays.
- Compromise on some of the little things in order to launch. Just work out what is truly little in the scheme of things.
- They’re comfortable with building something ‘average’. Either way, they get paid and it’s probably less work than building something truly great.
- Expect them to be great at traditional development skills. Don’t expect them to be on the cutting edge of modern standards.
- Outsourcing development overseas still represents amazing value and it’s hard to look past it if you’re building a minimum viable product.
- Be willing to take control of the things that truly matter.
- Treat them with respect. You’ll get a better product, have more fun do it and you won’t be a tool.
- Good luck getting personality out of them. I’ve drawn one laugh in 6 months of joking around with our developers.
- Try as hard as you can to have them ‘buy in’ to what you’re creating and help them to recognise what’s truly important to your projects success.
- You’ll have 1 or 2 headaches explaining things. Resist the temptation to bash your head against the desk. Sketch out your thoughts, explain them and show examples of similar concepts.
- Do some forward planning and show them where you’ll be improving the product in the future. It will save a lot of headaches down the track.
- No matter how many businesses you create, they’re all gut wrenching.
- Building passive income is liberating.
- Get out of the office when you’re dreaming it up. Most of my creativity came at the beach, running laps or lying by the pool.
- Build what you would want to use yourself.
- Creating something is fuc*ing awesome.
