things i learned building my first app
haris mahmood@harismahmood89
freelancermeetharis.com
ladies learning code
• IBM
• OMERS
• The Working Group
• The Globe And Mail
• Rogers
• TSN
• Organics Live
• Shopify
• And more…
never built an app entirely on my own
multi-page html/css site workshop
“but my form doesn’t work”
php scripts, wufoo forms, other paid/expensive alternatives
emma would be disappointed
i’ll build it, and people will come
don’t just ask your friends
kidding. sort of.
are you solving a problem?
are you providing a service that people need?
what do good products have in common?
what pain points exist?
how have others tried to solve this issue?
what pain points will your product address?
some is better than none
simple implementation?
highly performant?
optimized for scale?
react + redux + etc?
laravel? cakephp?
firebase? myql? postgresql?
your stack does not matter
you aren’t selling scale or performance
so why focus at such an early stage?
far more important things to work on
be aware of limitations
what should you build first?
minimum viable product
the product with the highest return on investment versus risk
how do you determine MVP?
only 20% of the features are used by 80% of the users
V2 september 2011
android april 2012
V3.4 december 2012
never leave your product in a non-functioning state
project begins to slow down
“i’ll work on it tomorrow”
it is extremely difficult to find the momentum to start again
personal projects don’t have timelines
you are the client
block out time in your calendar
nine months later
conversion + retention
there are two key milestones for most businesses
The moment they sign up for your product
The moment they achieve their first success with your product
define the “success”
launched too early
do things, tell people
email collection
4x more effective than twitter
alternate channels
launched too late
if you’re proud of the whole product, you launched too late
determine your goals
the cheddar? the cheese? the mooola? the dolla dolla bills?
set expectations
part-time start ups
stable of ponies?
what are your users doing? thinking?
user testing + feedback
its possible to do it yourself
the online dev community is fantastic
more comfortable
go make a pony@harismahmood89