Building an MVP

Learn to code.

  • It's not that hard (so many tutorials out there now)
  • You don't have to be good to show value
  • Pays dividends in automating your workflows
  • You can evaluate new hires (i.e. they must be better than you)
  • Learn Git

Get a good tech co-founder

  • Hardest thing to do but the most important
  • If you're not technical ask a friend to test/vet
  • The tech is just as important as your business idea
  • Don't outsource

Build fast. Break things.

  • You need to launch early
  • Spaghetti is edible
  • If you survive you can rebuild it better later
  • Slap beta on it and no one will care if it goes down

Someone's already built it

  • Open source is love, open source is life
  • Modern day programming is kinda like Lego
  • Write as little code as possible
    Less code == less bugs???
  • Build it vs Buy it

Language?

Javascript I guess...

  • Only langauge that can be used on front AND backend
  • Lots of developers working with it
  • Large pool of existing packages to leverage
  • Easy to learn

Scale later

  • If it crashes from too many people (100s) congratulations on your good product
  • Better to scale vertically (big server) than horizontally (many small servers) until you have no other choice
  • Your time is better spent building/testing features

Free (1 year+) infrastructure getting system

  • IBM Softlayer (generous, we use them)
  • Amazon (hello vendor lock-in)
  • Azure (Get bizspark for free MS products)
  • Google Cloud

Must have hosted Services

  • Cloudflare (free dns/ddos protection, sitespeed, helps with scaling issues)
  • Transactional Email - Sendgrid, MailGun, Amazon SES
  • Automation - Zapier (Can probably build a startup using just this)
  • Payment - Stripe/Braintree
  • Analytics - Google Analytics/Heap
  • Source Control - Gitlab/Github

Development

  • Fast, Cheap, Quality (Pick two)
  • Software is like building a house
  • Aim to replace it in a year
  • Make notes of hacks that you make
  • Use Linux for your infrastructure
  • Try to avoid vendor lock-in (e.g. AWS)

Main take aways

  • Javascript based stacks are easiest
  • Release early
  • Don't hire bad programmers
  • Good programmers are hard to seduce
  • Get your hands dirty, everyone should be coding
  • Don't be a perfectionist
  • Leverage free tools/ always ask for discounts

Questions?

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