Thread by @hrishiptweets

21 lessons in product building after 4 years of running my own startup & 9 years of writing software 🧵👇

1/ Getting people to know about your product is the toughest part when building your product.

2/ Build an audience before you build a product.

3/ You don't need to quit your job for building your audience. You can easily do this on the side.

4/ Start a blog, newsletter, write regularly on social media, build a following on niche (or not so niche) communities to build an audience.

5/ Don't build unless it is absolutely essential to do so.

6/ Thinking of building a 2-sided marketplace?

- Use 2 simple forms e.g. @typeform
- Store data in @airtable
- Manually get your MVP running.

You don't need a product yet.

7/ Decide exactly what you want to build and build only that's most essential. Make a list of features you want to see in your product V1 and strike out features that aren't a blocker.

8/ Fast, good or cheap - At any point, you can only get 2 out of these 3 right. A good quality product made quickly won't be cheap OR A cheap product made asap won't have great quality.

9/ Never reinvent the wheel. Existing solutions are better on almost every aspect - fast, robust & cheap (lifetime value).

10/ If you don't need customisations, use a no-code solution instead. For ex., you should almost never feel the need to build a marketing page from scratch - use a no-code tool.

11/ Learn how websites work. Better, learn to code (basics are enough). This is applicable even if you're building a No-code solution or outsourcing development.

12/ Before building any feature, double check if there's an existing library, plugin or an entire product. Again, never reinvent the wheel.

13/ When building a product, always think of building an MVP first. Launch a version of the product, get feedback, iterate & build on top of it.

14/ When building a feature (in an existing product), again think of building an MVP (or MVF to be accurate) first. Launch a version of the feature, get feedback, iterate & build on top of it.

15/ Minimise the number of variables to manage. For ex. use an out-of-the-box hosting provider like Heroku (@heroku) or Netlify (@Netlify) vs. AWS wherever possible.

16/ Software doesn't last forever. When you build something from scratch, don't expect it to run magically forever. Version upgrades, feature deprecation & other maintenance issues are bound to come up.

17/ Always have a Todo list for features. Better, have a roadmap. When you strike off features from a version of a product, don't just throw them away. Document it for later.

18/ Trust data & user feedback, not just your intuition.

19/ Try all possible channels for user acquisition & marketing. You can't be sure what channel works unless you try.

20/ Make something functional & then focus on the aesthetics. You probably don't need a designer for building your MVP.

21/ Don't try to solve for all problems at once. Figure the most critical ones & solve for them first. Iterate and solve for the rest in later versions.