Hey Everyone,
I am a non-tech professional (marketing+product), and have an idea that would require considerable amount of tech involvement.
Since I'll have to bootstrap this I am unable to wrap my head around how will I even plan and execute this project.
Has anyone gone through this and has successfully built a SaaS product?
I like this too. Maybe there is an even more distilled idea?
If you have several features in mind just focus on nailing one really well, get some paying users, and use that to raise or bootstrap the rest
Is raising VC without traction likely? I suspect not, but what do you think?
Im not sure. Never tried. Isnt that how they do it in YC?
Nope.
VC's augment growth, not jumpstart it.
My bad, maybe there's other ways of getting funds at the OP can you to find devs?
Bootstrap in the beginning stages and then find devs and toss them a bit of equity before raising money from a vc and losing a huge chunk of ownership?
For option 2, when hiring someone, how can I ensure all the proper steps in software development is followed? Is there any resource that shows what questions to ask and what steps should be followed up until deployment?
Im going to assume you already found product market fit.
In that case, my recommendation is to do how we did at my past employer:
If you have not yet found product market fit, my advice would be a bit different:
Also, a very important lesson i learned the hard way: Don't solve problems you dont have!!!
I was building this app for musicians and stuff. I made the decision to use Vert.x for my backend because "who knows, maybe i will have millions of people using the app at the same time". Vert.x handles such scenarios very well.
However, with vert.x my code quickly became a "callback hell" and was hard to read, debug and test. Vert.x is also quite a "barebones framework" and I found myself re-inventing the wheel a couple times. Don't get me wrong. I love vert.x. Its beautiful. But it solved a problem I didnt have.
It was purely an "engineering decision". Not a "business decision". Don't be me lol
When I decided to pivot, i chose Spring for my backend and was able to ship in just over 1 month.
(Later I found out there's libs out there similar to Spring, that use vert.x on the background, like Micronaut or something. Not sure. Will try it out some day)
Im not the best person to answer that.
I've only ever been on the "Dev" side not the "Hiring a dev" side
At my past employer we followed the standard practices like -> Agile methodologies, code reviews, all code must have proper test coverage, all changes had to be documented (whether for internal or external use).
However my past employer already had product market fit.
At my startup (early stage. Few months old), I'm doing things in a non standard way. Im not having 100% code coverage, not documenting everything (just the things i think i may forget for example).
I guess it depends on what stage of the business you're at.
Blud said raise VC funds
Please don’t give random advice like “raise vc funds and hire someone who does”
This was my problem too. Flash forward like 13 years and I’m an architect-level software engineer 🤣
You can do it too!
There are other options like the book Slicing Pie.
I had a repeated idea to that where if you register as a C-Corp you can create like 10,000,000 stock.
Then pay contractors who believe in your idea an hourly stock wage. The legalities are tough though, so beware.
I think you need a tech cofounder, or spend about 6 months learning what's absolutely needed. Even then, ofc you'd make more mistakes than with a cofounder.
Why though, if you truly believe the idea is worth developing with an equity stake, you would develop the product yourselves?
In layman’s terms.
This is a business of building businesses lol.
Either the agency helps build a successful saas and takes a %. Or it fails. And they still get ££.
It’s just the game I guess.
OP. Your idea honestly isn't worth much.
This approach is probably your best option, but be aware that your are highly likely to fail their criteria of "is this worth it for us?".
Even if you do "succeed", you will likely not have much equity left by the time you get to market. Why would you? What percentage of person-hours are coming from you having the idea and what percentage from these guys taking all the risks and doing all the work?
This. There's a cottage industry of consultants and companies out there that will gladly take OP's money to build a product. It's an extremely high risk was to build a product!
You can build an MVP using a no-code tool such as Bubble to validate your idea and get possible investors on board. There is still a learning curve but much easier than the plain code way. If you mind sharing your idea (in private if you want), I can tell you how easy/possible it would be to build an MVP in Bubble (since no-code can be quite limiting)
This but would recommend FlutterFlow if going down the nocode route. You won’t be vendor locked and can export the code. Web and mobile (web performance isn’t bad, but isn’t as good as react, for example)
Everyone has ideas. Only the execution matters. If you have no way to execute, your idea is worthless.
This person clearly knows this and is asking for help.
Well the answers are obvious:
1: Learn tech skills
2: Pay someone with tech skills
What else is he hoping for?
For MVP.
If this is an innovative idea low code might not fit the bill but i don't know what you're trying to build. I do not have a lot of experience with low code other than a little with AppSheet.
One step up for testing purposes for a limited number of users is Google Apps Script and Google Workspace so you can quickly test ideas and use JS for more customizability.
Or get lucky finding a technical cofounder or a software developer with morals on Upwork who will build it for pay and not rug pull you.
All from experience as the developer.
Bootstrap it. You can build it a bit at a time using income from your job. It will take a lot longer than having all the funds ready to go, but you'll retain all the equity. Your other option would be to take a personal loan if you have good credit and a reliable source of income. However, it's risky because your business may not work out but you will still have to repay the loan. Depends on your risk apetite.
If your idea needs big upfront investment in tech I would be very curious to see what evidence/experiments/validations justify that you actually should build it now that way.
Can you break down your idea into the smallest unit that proves the core of the value even without coding?
And then for such small thing you can opt to learn some dev skills.
And with market validation comes a more compelling story to get a tech founder onboard for the real heavy lifting that follows because of incremental development
Or even raise money
I'd recommend you seek a technical partnership/cofounder and learn the fundamentals so that you can at least talk the lingo. Depending on your idea I may know 1 or 2 people who could help.
finding the right partners is critical
I can help, I am not looking for money nor equity. I am learning too and would love to share my knowledge and work together. :)
Before you waste any time or money, how do you know people will actually buy your product? Do you have a rolodex of qualified buyers who are happy to pay for your solution? How much monthly revenue will it actually bring in? Is that amount high enough to make this all worth it?
The important it s money!
Hey Kartmat, I created my MVP development studio for this exact reason. We help founders go from idea to product in a short timeframe while building for the ability to scale and iterate in the future.
We have worked with founders on tech strategy so they are sure they are focusing on the core features of their app
DO NOT hire someone to build your software unless you have a lot of money to throw on it and you are willing to lose all of them. Software is not a 1-time project. Great softwares doesn’t stop at mvp, but they are a product of continued iteration over years. If you can’t pay for it over years, then it will be a waste of your money. Invest on yourself on how to build it, learn to code or use a low code application (e.g flutterflow). Once you’ve learned it, you can basically do any project you can think of
Start off with white label SaaS (ofc not gohighlevel) and once u make money invest in hiring some devs to make u an app u can actually call yours
You can learn development yourself or build through a no-code platform.
I'm willing to help someone on a project if we use my C++ code generator on the project. It's geared more toward network services more than webservices.
You need to learn some basics of development to understand what the next person is doing. Had an amazing experience with people who've a similar background, but they're able to get their products live.
Start first with testing your idea in the market to see if the customers are interested in paying you for that. Then, find a person who can help you in developing your product.
Are any wireframes ready for your product, or are you starting it from scratch?
I am a technology entrepreneur.. let's partner ( if you are interested)
I would suggest finding a technical co-founder pitching your idea to see if is even possible. Because, if you are not technical try doing this by yourself, you will get frustrated and discouraged for not understanding how some things may appear simple but in reality are complex require time.
Hey, i am a techie dm me. If the idea is interesting i am willing to to work with you.
You can use no-code platforms to build your SaaS even if you have no coding experience - it would allow you to build and scale it very quickly even without hiring developers. Here is a guide with more details on building your startup's MVP this way: How to Become a No-Code Startup | Blaze
Depending on the idea, you could start building on a no-code platform (easier than learning coding but still has a learning curve). The idea would be to at least get your MVP built on your own so you have something real to test with potential customers and to potentially pitch to investors.
As a professional software engineer, I do not recommend ever using "no-code" platforms. All you end up with is something that doesn't do what you want, is more confusing than just learning to code to begin with, is impossible to fix so you have to start over anyway, and to top it all off you can't hire real software engineers to work on it either. "no-code" is a scam.
Is this something that could get to MVP with a no-code setup?
There are tons of great communities (like No Code Founders) who can help.
Another question is timeline.
Are you cool with slowly building it yourself or do you need to get to market ASAP? Basically - do you have an income stream that could support not making money for a while.
If you have time, again, no-code it yourself would be my angle.
If you need to make money with it ASAP then I think a technical cofounder you trust would make sense. But DONT rush that process.
You want someone you can trust.
I'd recommend learning coding.
You can start with SaaS templates (these are codebases that you deploy and then extend for your use-case), where a lot of stuff is already done, like payments with Stripe, authentication of users etc.
You can take a look at demo of mine for instance, this is what you will have out-of-the-box after deployment: https://demo.saasconstruct.com/
Many non-tech professionals have successfully launched SaaS products despite lacking technical expertise. It's about finding the right partners and resources. Clarify your idea, then seek tech-savvy collaborators who share your vision. Success is possible with the right strategy and team.
If u dont have tech skills u have a few options.
I think in reality it'll probably be a combination of these points that'll do for you