First off, let me just say that much of the time was actually just spent learning web development. (Go, Vue, Tailwind). I was a complete beginner one year ago.
That also why I don’t regret having built the site: I learned a ton and I’ll be able to build my next project 10x faster.
That said, here’s what you can learn from my mistakes:
- Don’t be afraid of competition.
Going after markets with low competition isn’t a bad idea. You can be a big fish in a small pond. But it gets problematic when the market is so niche that noone actually needs what you are making. With my next product, I’ll go after a proven market. Sure there’ll be competition, but at least people will be interested in what I have to offer.
- Design is less important than you think.
I made 3 different landing pages for my product, thaught there was something wrong with it every time and made a new one from scratch. Complete waste of time. Pretty design doesn’t change your value proposition and is never going to be a reason someone buys. Sure, good design can improve conversion rates, but if there is no instrinsic demand for what you offer then design won’t help. 0•x = 0
- Know your customers
One of my main challenges when building my product (keepyourstory.com) was that I was never really sure who it was for. I just built something I found cool and hoped people would appreciate it. Next time I’ll start with a niche, find a problem people are experiencingbin that niche and market it precisely to them.
Learning programming by building a project is indeed the best way to learn, but also the hardest to ensure financial success. I also started coding about a year ago and the main result I have seen is my confidence in that truly anything can be built and it is not outside of my capabilities.
Right now I am building a tool that I know I will use so that at least there will be 1 user with interest. Maybe there are more like me out there who will prefer to pay me for access to the tool instead of spending tons of hours learning how to code at night while doing their day job :P
The other way is to start with pre-selling a solution: Look for a problem, getting the users to tell you what the solution is and then using simple html, css and js to create a mockup of what they suggested. Get them to pay you upfront for the fully working solution and off you go. However, this takes away from actually building and spending many hours speaking to people about the problems they want solved. However, if done correctly, house should be at least building with income!
It definitely looks to me.like you learned the right lessons though!
Then again, I haven’t had any income yet so probably not necessarily the guy to listen to ;)
I’m in your boat!
I’m a self taught Android developer who, like you, created an app to help in my day-to-day job. Here’s the thing, I use my app daily and it indirectly has earned me thousands by making me more efficient, making less mistakes and quickens my day up (it even prints receipts!)
I’m planning on releasing it soon but I’m re-writing the code because I know a lot more today plus my rewriting will make it faster. I’m also switching from Java to Kotlin and SQLite to Room.
While I hope to make money by releasing it, I don’t care if it doesn’t because it helps me. My one visible app in the Play Store doesn’t make me a penny but again it helps me. That was never designed to make me money, simply so I could understand and get a presence on the Play Store.
I love your passion because I have the same. I code at night, not because I have to, but because I want to and love coding.
I understand you 100%. I don’t regret the time I spent building it. The coding skills alone I acquired were totally worth it. I don’t think I could have learned full stack development if it wasn’t for that project.
You should totally do a post about your project once you release it, would be happy to try it out!