Video není dostupné.
Omlouváme se.
Starting a Software Company (And What I Learned from Failure)
Vložit
- čas přidán 17. 08. 2024
- So I bet you all didn't know that I tried to start my own little software company :-P
After a long year of hard work and weekends spent furiously coding, I finally gave it up. In this video I give a little insight into what the software actually was, what happened and (most importantly) what I learned from failure.
** Recommended Reading **
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries (Affiliate Link): amzn.to/2OwcEFr
** Social Media **
Twitter: @andysterks
Facebook: / andy.sterkowitz
Before starting developing software...
1. If business is complex ask for help on funding and technical aspects.
2. Break you complex logic to modular small task to work on
3. Start with prototyping
4. Get the customer feedback
5. Apply the feedback and develop.
6. Repeat 4 , 5 until you arrived at somewhat final version to launch.
7. Make an You tube video on that to inspire people.
yoo!! ur great man thank u
One should do a feasibility study first
Hey fam, I hope that you and your loved ones are well. I would like to ask you the most important question ever asked:
Who is Jesus? Not who is He to you. Rather, who is He really?
Jesus is the Son of God, who came to the world as a man. He lived a perfect and sinless life . Even though He was perfect and sinless, on the cross of Calvary God wrathfully punished Him for the sins of the world. 3 days later He rose from death. Now He is seated at the right hand of God, ruling as King over Heaven and Earth.
On the judgment day He will judge you, me and every human being that has ever lived. Those who believed in Him will enter eternal joy with Him, but those who did not believe in Jesus will be sent to eternal condemnation.
So turn from your sins and believe in the Jesus. Believe and hope that you can be forgiven for all your sins because of His death and resurrection. He took your place in Hell, so that if you submit to Him as your Lord and God, you can be forgiven and take His place in heaven- you will be made sinless and perfect before the Holy Father. He'll also give you a new heart and mind that can love and obey Him.
Jesus lives so that you can have true life and freedom, and most importantly so that you can have an eternally peaceful relationship with God.
You are dead, and Jesus is your Hope of love.
Acts 15:11
”On the contrary, we believe it is through the grace of the Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are."
Ephesians 1:7
”In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace"
Ephesians 2:8
”For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God,”
John 11:25-26: "Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?'
1 Corinthians 6:14: "And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power."
Romans 6:9: "We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him."
Talking to your users IS an indispensable part of it.
You don't need to partner with anyone. Hundreds of entrepreneurs made it solo. You need to focus and work hard and not quit.
Thanks for sharing and being honest 👍. Most devs make the same mistake, me included 🤓
Yes totally! Starting a company is so hard and hopefully someone out there can avoid the mistakes I made.
you have inspired me to share my mistakes and tips too. I have added it to my ToDo list for my CZcams channel :) - my startup from earlier this year now has 2 employees. I have so much to learn, but can also share from my experiences. Thank you again for sharing :)
It's amazing because this right here is actually what happens to 90-95% of software devs that want to start a company and yet this is one of the only guys on CZcams telling this story. Most of the other stuff is just clickbait.
Yup! It’s reality vs. expectations. I’m so grateful for the learning experience.
The key to success is... wait for it... FAIL FAST and FAIL OFTEN! That's it. This is what you tried to explain in this video. You have to validate your idea before investing massive amounts of time into it. And by the looks of things, you're definitely on the right track. Best of luck!
"That's it."
Success is a result of many factors, and definitely more than just failing. You know there were successful companies before some Silicon Valley brogrammer coined that phrase, right?
Daniel Dogeanu that is a v backhanded comment
Awesome video Andy, keep up the great work man!
Thanks for the kind words. Lots of fun stuff coming soon :-)
Hey fam, I hope that you and your loved ones are well. I would like to ask you the most important question ever asked:
Who is Jesus? Not who is He to you. Rather, who is He really?
Jesus is the Son of God, who came to the world as a man. He lived a perfect and sinless life . Even though He was perfect and sinless, on the cross of Calvary God wrathfully punished Him for the sins of the world. 3 days later He rose from death. Now He is seated at the right hand of God, ruling as King over Heaven and Earth.
On the judgment day He will judge you, me and every human being that has ever lived. Those who believed in Him will enter eternal joy with Him, but those who did not believe in Jesus will be sent to eternal condemnation.
So turn from your sins and believe in the Jesus. Believe and hope that you can be forgiven for all your sins because of His death and resurrection. He took your place in Hell, so that if you submit to Him as your Lord and God, you can be forgiven and take His place in heaven- you will be made sinless and perfect before the Holy Father. He'll also give you a new heart and mind that can love and obey Him.
Jesus lives so that you can have true life and freedom, and most importantly so that you can have an eternally peaceful relationship with God.
You are dead, and Jesus is your Hope of love.
Acts 15:11
”On the contrary, we believe it is through the grace of the Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are."
Ephesians 1:7
”In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace"
Ephesians 2:8
”For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God,”
John 11:25-26: "Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?'
1 Corinthians 6:14: "And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power."
Romans 6:9: "We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him."
I've done this many times, got started on new software ideas I had, worked for months and didn't get it into a place that I liked and dumped the project out of frustration. Recently I've only let myself put 10 hours in before showing someone and having them use it. 10 hours is easy to split on a weekend. Sunday night I send someone the latest build and see what they say, and I've had some people get really excited. Now they're checking up on me seeing if it does the features they asked for yet! It's a huge motivator. The lesson is to not get too deep in a rabbit hole before verifying that someone wants what you're building.
Bro you are a genuine self made programmer, I respect you
That's OK. Try again and don't stop until you get through.
It's like applying for jobs...
You had the balls to start your own project, tell us your experience and keep a positive attitude for future opportunities, thank you. I'd suggest you Nichola Taleb's "Antifragile" book, to me it seems you're antifragile (good thing) so you have the right potential.
Thanks for the recommendation I’ll check it out! I’ve heard great things. And thank you for the kind words. 😀
If you like coding, it's also very easy to forget the amount of time you spend. Weeks can fly by without seeing daylight. At least, that's me.
Great video series you are creating. After watching your video on learning to code I ordered the head first into python book and now I just finished my first full week of learning my first code. Your videos are insightful and inspiring. Thanks for taking the time.
Thanks a million Brandon. So glad to hear you are taking the dive. Let me know how I can help...especially if you have any specific questions or topics you'd like me to cover in future videos. Good luck!!
Hi Andy. Thanks for this. I'm in legal tech as we like to call it, and it's one of the most painful places to be as an innovator. Smaller market and even smaller user base. I do agree, teaming up at the beginning and prototyping is a sure way to set yourself up for success. Very inspiring video
I am sorry I am going to go all spiritual with this comment...THIS VIDEO WAS GOD SENT TO ME!!! I am currently planning to start a software company and this was just what I needed.
This comment has made my day Ogundeinde! I'm so glad it could help you out. I wish you the best of luck and if you have any other questions about my experience please let me know!!
Not God, Google algorithm.... :)
Ogundeinde Adedamola how did it go?
Hey bro , how is it going with ur software company
Thank you for sharing your “failures”. I find this type of advice so much more valuable than the usual how-to videos.
Imagine you finally built the app, market it on facebook and realize that you've lost a ton of money on facebook ads manager and nobody wants to buy the app. Just imagine.
Very useful video! I actually had a similar experience, trying to design a system that I myself would love to have and giving up after months of hard work. I think the underlying problem here is, as new programmers we couldn't estimate what it would really take to code, maintain and introduce to the market even the simplest new product. One of my more experienced friends told me when I started mine was a 7-people 4-year problem and I should have listened. We live and learn though :) Thank you for the video!
Thanks for the share. Hopefully you can finish the app. It sounds really promising.
Love your videos. You are inspiring me to learn coding this winter in my off season. I work nights at a warehouse job p/t for money and especially medical insurance. During the day I operate a small lawn service with my wife. It pays the bills, and has gotten us out of the hole we were quickly heading down.
I've tried a few landscaper focused pieces of software and have not liked any of them. You definitely need to get it in front of a potenrial client early on, maybe even just as a series of papers to spell out the menu options and screens. Needs to be customizable gor what each attorney will want thier employeea focusing on and very intuitive. Don't give up. You may want to get a sample of your competitors most recent version to compare with. Ask some of your attorney associates what they like and don't like about the competion. Once you think it is ready, maybe give it to the first few clients at a discount or even frew in exchange for somw reviews to add to your marketing. My wife went through that circus of an immigration system that we have when she brought her mom over 20 years back; so complex, expensive, and time consuming. Sounds like you've got a winning idea to me, though.👍
Great video in sharing your mistakes.. it'll be a learning journey for others.
I don't know why I got this video, but I'm really glad I did. You give me hope.
I am already a C# developer but I am a one person team at my company. If you ever get back into this or another project and need help, let me know.
Will do Daniel thank you for the offer. If I decide to go down that route I will definitely reach out!
Found this video extremely useful. Thanks a million.
This video came as a recommendation as I'm currently learning code starting with python and javascript so I can start online companies and build apps. I watched one of your earlier videos and bought the book (Head First) along with their most recent book which teaches the concept of code using the python language. I hope to learn code as soon as possible to get started.
So have you started reading the head first javascript book? And if so how are you feeling about it so far?
Andy Sterkowitz wow ☺! I like the approach that head first takes in teaching code with first off giving you exercises, and showing you how code itself really works by having you think computationally. Right now I'm learning about "scripts" and "variables" and how these languages differ from each other while the concept stays relatively the same.
Very Helpful video, I was going through the same issues that you mentioned, Thanks Andy
This just gave me an idea for a new project relative to a big part of my current job that involves software which needs a huuuuuge upgrade (still a CS student at the moment so I don't work in development yet). If nothing else, it'll be a nice project to get practice with and something for my programming portfolio. Helpful video as usual, thanks for the upload!
Wow. My story is very similar to yours. I started out in sales. Found a knack for technology in my second job. Was hired from out of state to sell cross country in my third but got caught up in finding solutions to details & logistics of the company's problems. I ended up in project management after just a few months based solely on my mediocre level ability to apply tech solutions to daily tasks. After the first year trying to modernize the company I worked for along with 4 antiquated "sister" construction related companies I found there was a huge piece missing with small businesses and day to day management/synchronous coordination/ accounting/customer relations /field reporting/inventory needs...etc. I spent the next 2 years of my life trying to fit small businesses into commercially available software with marginal success. I couldn't find anything that worked the way the way it needed to. I spent months trying to make excel and access do what I needed it to. After the third year I knew I had to just make what I couldn't find. I am currently in a web dev boot-camp just because of your videos. I cant thank you enough.
i loved this video Andy, so inspiring. Sounds like a good journey. Tbh I wish you made it, but im sure you did what's best. You'll have another great idea
I don't know about Computer Science programs or programming boot camps teaching the business side of Development but I have heard of cooking schools including teaching the business aspects of cooking or running a restaurant. I enjoyed this video Andy and keep doing what you are doing.
Can you do a video specifically on the prototyping process? Very helpful. Thanks.
PS I am currently on a fully funded university course in software engineering and, although they get a bad rap online, some of the key focuses so far have been on things like project planning, pseudocode, requirements gathering, etc so it does feel good in that respect.
Thank you for sharing what you've learned. It'll definitely save time for a lot of time for aspiring techpreneurs out there.
Apparently your enthusiasm got the best of you, my 2 cents, you should have planned this better from starting-a-business prospective, forget the coding at first, what was the plan, you explained the problem you were trying to solve and your target market, but you never discussed the business plan, that's why you ended at this stage, but knowing you (through your videos) and knowing how passionate and smart you're, you'll figure it out, my advice to you (because you have a full time job) is to do it in chunks / layers, what piece is needed first, what basic functionalities need to be included in your very first release, then build up from there, as for the pressure of finishing on time & on budget, you shouldn't have any pressure, you have no clients lined up and neither a dedicated budget, a stressed out developer is a bad developer (a metaphor used on pro athletes), stay strong, keep the faith, and before we all know it, we'll see an ad for that company online :-)
I think a good way to go about any project in entrepreneurship is to have one person from the management side and the other with technical expertise. That way there is someone who would always be there to track progress and hold the process together.
9:45 i knew you were going to say lean start up lol. its a really good book. build measure learn feedback loop...
What if you save some money, take a career break for 6-12 mo and follow your dream? If you believe in the product, go for it.
Thanks for tips! And good luck!
Excellent talk and couldn't agree more, Andy.
It's really difficult to bring somebody in to work with you on a project that doesn't bring anything in the beginning, isn't it? Especially if they don't share the same vision as you do. I'm facing similar problems right now, but I'm focusing more on the steps needed for producing a solid, stable, performant software. From designing the product to marketing it. And yes, it really can be overwhelming, especially if you are doing every step for the first time. I'm glad that there are people without any IT background, any design background, any marketing background (and by background I mean getting a college degree in particular field) and just trying to create a product for others. From my experience that's the best way to learn stuff and to learn them really well. I've also started learning programming 3 years ago, and from day 1 I've never asked myself what language should I learn first. Needs for what I'm trying to create defines the learning path that I'll take. Regardless, it's nice to see there are others who shift their careers and finally FEEL ALIVE!
Thanks for sharing this openly. Did you have a business model in mind, how much to charge and how you could turn this around to pay for all your company investments? I'm asking, because I'm not in your business world and when watching the video, I've often thought like "How many of these specialised attorneys are there to make this a viable app".
Could your app remain functioning if you say fell sick? Who could debug the backend servers, questions like this. I know that software often is the creation of one mind and it's not easy to keep that going and updating alone in a payed model. Questions, questions :) good luck and never give up coding!
8:07 I've made that mistake many times in the past. Today I don't write a single line of code without a project on paper.
Awesome man! you are so great.. You will achieve what you wish
Thanks a lot Andy. That was really helpful.
To be honest I thought I was doing it wrong given the amount of time it's been taking me to launch but it seems that I've unknowingly have been taking the right steps. Awesome
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. Really helpful to us.
Wow. That’s very insightful.
When you say that you worked 10-12hrs during the weekends, was this a weekly occurrence or were there weekends where you took breaks and/or lost motivation?
I mean I wasn't perfect...there were definitely some weekends where I maybe took a break on a Sunday or only worked 4 hours (instead of the 10-12). At the very least, I would say I was consistently working both Saturday and Sunday for most of that summer. It was brutal in hindsight but I was highly motivated and I truly believed in the app, the idea and in myself to get it done.
Software Engineering takes a lot of time in the business problem analysis phase, DFDs, structures charts, use case diagrams, etc, etc, etc, then the development phase and at the end, after you have a fully documented project you can hand that to coders, whether they are C, C++, C#, Java, whatever. So you could be three months working your butt off with a small team of people before you're ready to write code, then unit test, document code, etc, etc. I think if one has an idea for a software solution to a business problem. One should pitch it to a software company and act as software engineer in charge of translation from business domain to the technical domain, and lead the development.
Thank you. I started learning to code for an idea I have and this will help me a lot.
I will start my own software company. Thanks for your story.
such an honest self-review. Kudos!
Amazing article! Every founder should follow this advice!
Thanks for sharing experience and being really honest about it. Thanks a ton!
Questions:
1. Did you apply some development techniques such as BDD or TDD?
If not, do you think this would help you to ramp out an MVP?
2.It sounded that you were doing waterfall development instead of an iterative approach.
However, I think you are clever enough to recognise that. But somehow in the process you kept doing what you did. Can you recall why you kept continuing? I think it is valuable for us, to recognise that point.
Awesome video! Well I'm a newbie developer fresh out of college. And I'm keen on learning a lot. If it would be okay, you can suggest me on something to learn or even work on something you're working on, for free. Because my only intent is to learn more, not money. Hope to hear back from you. :)
That’s a really dope application idea. Worked on immigration paperwork with my spouse and thought of an application to speed up and make the process easier.
Thanks for sharing! It is a really interesting topic. I hope you will try it again with another app.
Business 101 - Know the scope of your project. Getting over your head and quitting is typical.
It sounds like a great idea. I hope you get back to work on it...before someone else does.
Sounds like the mistakes are
* Not using what you are familiar with (.net) but instead used node
* Not getting a cofounder leads to easier burn out and loss of motivation
* Jump into coding without doing validation first
* Spend more time coding than talking to customers
From what I understand the starting stage up to "product market fit" is just product development, but programmers tend to get caught up with the technical details (probably because we feel more comfortable in familiar terrain) and end up spending time on things that don't have as high an impact.
So what did you do after that? Did you complete that App or did you quit? I want to hear of how to create success stories.
Hi Andrew, you gave it a go, ok it did not work perhaps this time, but you gained some great experience for next time. 👍👍 keep going.
Exactly! I definitely appreciate the lessons I've learned and sometimes the only way you learn is through first hand mistakes. Plus I get to share it with others.
How immigration question is closed to me. Very nice experience. I mean kind of nice =) Good experience to have, product development/startup is so hard to start.
Yes absolutely. I definitely recommend everyone try and do their own "mini-startup". You learn a lot of lessons along the way that will help you in your career.
Solid advice dude. Do you think that you underestimated the complexity of the project? I see developers doing that all the time, myself included.
Same thing happened to me! I started the wrong way and later on i read this book you mentioned. I wished i have read it before I started my app!! Thanks for the video
I was fired twice in my career (C++ dev) of 6 years and am trying to find my next job. I was fired for the wrong reasons which were not technical and am now finding it difficult to see my self work for some one. I am fairly good technically and have an idea for a software and thinking of developing it into a business. I feel quite motivated for this idea. Should I quit my job search and go ahead with developing my software ? Any suggestion would be appreciated.. Thanks
Aww, hang in there mate, the job world can be gruelling! I've been fired probably 3 times so far and I'm quite young. I can't concentrate in office environments because they're filled with so much white noise. I'm loving the remote shift to work now though. Now I have 2 remote offers :)
I don't know if you've answered this yet, but why did you move from JavaScript to C#? I'm learning JavaScript as part of the Udemy boot camp course I'm doing, and I'm curious why/when you made the move. Thanks!
I wanted to learn a backend language in demand. I knew that if I was going to get a job in the field that having experience in two programming languages (front and back end in particular) would go a longer way than just working in the front end.
Thank you for the sharing experience !
Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts! It's definetly useful....i'm kind of in the same situation. WOrking on a prototype....trying to make it as best as I can in order to sell it and it has passed almot 5 months...which sucks. My attitude is low and if I won't get kind of a user or client soon...i feel like I'll quit even though..I don't want to. Have a greate day!
I'm in the process of starting my own software. Having known the lean startup and your story makes a lot sense. Better to make a quick prototype and get users first. Then asses the market.
I think your idea was good and might have worked out. The problem is probably how you approached it.
I am in a similar situation with the difference that I'm living off my savings. That lets me work on week days and take weekends off. I also work max 9 hours per day. After that I have free/me time where I can watch a movie or whatever. I think you can never be productive just by simply coding like crazy. You will just end up with over engineered or intangible code. Also I don't think you can use node.js for anything other than simple web pages. I would have chosen Python for backend to be honest that gives you that fast prototyping and has a myriad of libraries.
Thanks for sharing your experiences and the advice.
I’m just wondering if you have tried hiring someone for cheap from fiverr to code a minimum viable product as a first step? Or is the code so bad that it’s not worth the cost?
Very interessting experince to hear. Also, I didn't knew you worked as a .NET developer (i tought you were a web dev). And .NET is the field I'm focusing in. What technologies do you recommend for the industry, after the project im doing with C# and windows forms, since win forms are bit deprecated.
Btw I'm looking foward for the mentoring, very kind of you!
Yup! I'm a full stack developer but I definitely like to work in C#. But I do like working with angular as well so I don't like to say that I'm a backend/frontend developer because I really like both. For this reason I doubt I'd ever work at a really big company where you specialize in one area (like backend).
Really appreciate the video
Thx I tweeted this n posted it on LinkedIn
Great learning experience! I'm sure you now know a formal plan, even if done on a napkin is well worth the effort.
Hi andy,first of all great video thx for sharing with us ! ,
Secound thing i well be very happy if u can explain more about your decision to switching off from node to .net
Sounds like an MVP mind-mapping would have really helped. Prototyping can usually help with this as well.
If you've never started a business revolving around an app you want to make, I would highly suggest building something YOU want to personally use. Makes it way easier to maintain motivation.
Edit: And you get to be a user of the app. The quickest feedback you can get, haha.
Hey Andy, What I can say that only gone wrong is that you never started with a good Team.I managed to push my Startup to Production within 8 months, by 10th month I had users testing for the beta version, Next time consider a team
love you dawg. thank you
I'm having a similar experience working on an application for the medical field. Just bouncing back from a burnout and feeling encouraged after watching your video.
Great Video. It totally sounds like having your own company is not out of your system. Am I right? I bet you are churning around for a new idea to start your own company! I think you would be great at it!
Thanks qwarlock Z. You're right haha... I definitely want to run my own business in the near future. Right now I am all in on this CZcams channel so I am going to take this as far as I can go. I don't know what is going to happen but I think there are endless possibilities potentially and I am keeping an open mind. So we'll see!
Any interest in finishing that product? Sounds interesting. Also based in Chicago.
Can't wait for the Coaching announcement, Just so I can know the requierments for the mentorship.
Will do VaporCode. Still putting everything together but as soon as I figure out those requirements I will make sure to post an announcement about it.
Thanks man sharing all that. 👍
This is an excellent video !!!
Great tips! Great name!
One thing I would like to know is:
Do I need to master Javascript pra be really good at it before learning frameworks? Or can I start learning frameworks after understanding well about JS and even after creating few apps with it?
Sounds to me like you should pick it up again. Probably gonna make you a lot of money. I'm in if you're up for it. I'll take a minimal share!
Haha ah I wish. I'm really diving into this CZcams thing now but I am always leaving my options open. I'll let you know and keep those shares on the side!
Hey man! This is an AMAZING video. Any way you could answer a few questions? Via a follow up video or connect offline
Thank you for sharing this. I am also planning to create an IT enterprise to develop a specific software which can help manufacturing companies. Do you think managing such a company without a background in software development would be possible?
What should or which course should we learn to Start a mobile manufacturing company
I have so much respect for you.
What did you think about the operations part (infrastructure for your app that should be highly available) ?
enjoying your vids from South Africa :)
Awesome!! Thanks for watching :-)
Let me know if there is anything I can help you with in terms of questions or topics to cover in future videos
Left a like, for sharing a real life experience on learning something from failure.
Please what are gadgets need to setup a software company
I think the idea is great and also has market need. Do you plan on starting another company?
I have a question for you but please don’t get me wrong(Why u didn’t reattempted to open the company and do it right this time ?)
Thanks for sharing man
Hey, you have an intention to pick up the app where you left if you have someone working on its side by side with you?
You can't prototype right from the start.
It takes many iterations to reach the prototype stage.
in the background , is not it same code splitted in two windows ? ?
BRO .... I am thinking of doing a software too....AND SO many videos about how it is comon and easy to fail that I fear about it ;/