I have been reading techcabal.com for about 8 months and finally joined radar as I believe I could get quality help here. Wasn’t too sure if this was the right category-it’s still in idea phase vs. product. Pls forgive my sins!
I’m a mature woman with a non-tech background & formal work experience in people development. I’ve been mulling an idea (for an app / website / blog /platform?) which would provide realtime data & price comparison services for groceries/household items. Basically, it’s for busy professionals/housewives like myself frustrated at buying cereal/tomatoes etc in one place only to find out it’s 40% cheaper down the road.
Would really, really appreciate if experienced radarians could share how they kicked off and minefields along the way that I should look out for? Something like the 5 key steps to kick off, especially given that my lack of tech savvy? How do I find a developer/designer firm that is competent and reliable- have heard of lots of scary stories. How do I even know if what they are offering me makes sense? Feedback on my base concept would also be greatly appreciated.
Have a source of income. (It couldn’t be savings, salary, inheritance, etc).
Find co-founders. At least you need one technical co-founder.
Sit down with technical co-founder (from step 2 above), and write a functional specs for your data & price comparison concept. (Take your time with this stage - you want a quality document at the end of the process ).
Yourself & co-founder should take functional specs (from step 3) to a Development house ( I’ve heard only good things about www.devcenter.co), and scope out the work. This is where your technical co-founder takes the lead to make key decisions you wouldn’t have a clue about. Those decisions will stick with you for a long time. E.g what programming language/frameworks to adopt, database architecture, etc.
Engage the development house. They’re usually not cheap so you should treat the money (from step 1), the way gamblers treat their earnings. Be ready to spend and lose it all . Your technical co-founder will work closely with them while you start working on the business side to get customers for the finished product.
In respect to your concept, I feel it’s targeting a niche market (at least now[. I know price comparison can be applied to variety of industries and products - but the type of person who will need them - seems to me as a price conscious, middle-class, tech savvy, time-rich, and educated type of person. Do you feel the segment you have in mind will appeal to more people?
Have a full-time job and some savings which I would be willing to put towards this venture.
This is my major headache- been searching for a tech co-founder for a while, perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places?
Could anyone share a decent sample functional spec document that I can look through while searching for my tech co-founder
Thanks for the devcenter link. Are there others I can compare with please?
Can you give me a range to work within? This will let me know if I should park the idea and keep saving up😂
Yes, that about describes the niche I’m targeting, just that they are time-poor. I would like to keep the niche narrow now and perhaps expand as we grow?
Again, thank you so much for your detailed response!
Great advice from @PapaOlabode. I’d add that you take one step back and do customer discovery first. Costs you nothing and will save lits of time, energy and money.
Google customer discovery to get resources to help. The goal is to talk to a large number of people and eventually get them to pay you to build the product.
If you can make money before writing a line a code your path will be far smoother.
In regards to your co-founder search, where have you been looking?
For functional specs, there are so many articles and materials out there, but, the one I always recommend is this oldie from Joel Spolsky Painless Functional Specifications – Part 1: Why Bother?. (Read the rest of the functional specs parts). He also provides a sample functional specs here. While your co-founder search is ongoing, makes sense to start on it. Just remember it’s not an assignment, that needs to be perfect. Just write as much as you can about what the concept will look like.
In respect to money range, I strongly doubt anyone can give you a range without knowing exactly what you want to build. Hence, why you need the functional specs.
I guess this is the problem you are trying to solve.
The first question you should answer is “why do you want to solve this problem; what’s the mission; or wouldn’t you rather be doing something else?” The failure rate of an idea or mission is about 95% for startups. People that quit after an initial failure are those who never had a true mission, maybe they just wanted to make money. A true business mission is almost spiritual - “a reason greater than reality or a passion stronger than life.” If you have a mission, rather than quit, you will find another solution to the problem by pivoting. That’s of course if you still have the resources (read: money).
The second question is “what’s your team structure”? Some startups are structured for problems from the outset. Your team should reflect four functions - the founders (management), investors (funding), specialist/industry experts (advice), employees (labor). Obviously when you’re starting, you have to combine most of these roles. For example, you can be the founder, ‘investor’, and employee. But understanding this structure will help you as you grow. You shouldn’t have more than 3 people in your startup team - one for strategy (YOU), one for product development (a tech co-founder), and the third for execution (sales).
The third thing to consider is your target market. Is there a need for the solution you want to build? This is the make it or break it part of a startup. And if you are considering investor money, is the need large/widespread enough? The only way you know if there is a need is if people are paying for it (I didn’t say ‘willing to pay’). What I usually advice is for you to watch consumer behavior on that problem/solution - how are your target customer presently solving this problem? If you can’t find people trying to solve this problem for themselves or paying for it somehow, then there is no market. And the more people you find, the larger the market. Note, I didn’t also say ‘ask’, I said ‘watch.’ People might not give you honest feedback but their actions usually give them out. If you tell people about your solution and they keep replying ‘nice idea’, run! But if they keep asking you ‘when is the product or website going to be ready?’ or ‘can I pay ahead for it?’, then you know there’s a pain point and you’re in business.
Next is your business model. What major channel (e.g. advertisements) are you going to use to acquire customers and how much will it cost you per customer? How much will you charge each customer for the product. Working out your unit economics will help you know if you can survive without external funding by bootstrapping. Like I keep saying, Nigeria is not Silicon Valley where you build products and monetize later.
After, you’ve addressed all the above, you can then build the product. The product might be the hallmark (distinctive feature) but it is the least important thing in a business. And don’t build a product, build an MVP - don’t spend more than 30 days in building and deploying the first version! The actual product is built during operations by tweaking the MVP based on what customers want. This is why having a technical co-founder as part of the team is vital. If you want to outsource your product development, then make sure it’s on a continuous engagement basis and that it’s someone who can wake up by 12 midnight to add more lines of code to your product.
Rather than pay say, N500k to a firm to develop your website or mobile app, get an experienced technical co-founder, give out some equity, and then use that money to pay him/her some stipends in addition like N50k monthly for internet, power etc. The risk is high so expect to give out about 30% (in the range of 10-50%) of equity if you want to find a good developer. There are lots of developers here on radar and you can simply post a job to find those who might be interested. How do you know if they can do the job? That’s where your team structure comes in (specialist/industry experts). Find an technical adviser to vet the developer.
Step 1 - Get prices: Go to all the stores in the area you want to cover and get the prices of every item sold there. This is obviously the biggest challenge in this idea. And I can’t really think of any alternative to doing this except that for some big stores that have websites, you can get the prices from their sites. But for the smaller stores… well, that’s when you get creative.
Step 2 - Chose a platform: App or Website. I’ll go for an app because this is something you want people to use every time they want to go shopping.
Step 3 - Build your version 1: What I’m thinking about is an app that launches a home screen with a search bar (think Google app). The background would be a map highlighting the user’s location and also the location of every store around him/her whose info you have. The search bar has a placeholder which reads “What do you want to buy?”. The user types in what he/she wants to buy, hit search and the app produces a list of all the stores in that area and how much they sell that item. That way the user can compare the prices. This is all you need at the moment. Any other feature should be added in subsequent version. Nevertheless, if you are an overachiever, you can add a feature where the user can select a store from the list and the app gives him/her direction from his/her current location to the store. Also later you can add features like sorting the list by price, proximity or proximity & price.
Step 4 - Iterate like your life depends on it. The general rule in startup is that your initial idea to solving the problem you want to solve (be it the one I just suggested or any other one you choose) will most likely be wrong. That is why you should build the simplest app as your version 1 and launch it as fast as possible. Because it is only after your users start interacting with it that you will know what you should be building.
Some notes:
Do not outsource the development of the app/website as some have suggested. That will be a bad idea. Since the app/website is part of your primary solution, you should be able to adjust anytime it to suit your users’ need. If you outsource, that mean paying for development whenever you have something new to add or change. So your technical co-founder should be the one to develop it. That way, it will be easier and cheaper to update.
2, How do you plan to make money from this solution. Please don’t think ads. You should have something else in mind before you start though.
You can PM me here if you need additional assistance.
Thanks a lot for this. I can see have a lot of work to do especially on identifying the pain point. I had thought a survey would do the trick but I get it’s more important to watch than just ask…
True to your name, you shed more light…I really appreciate your input, especially because you validated a number of my ideas and challenges.
The data gathering has to be mostly manual, creating the template for that now and wondering how to manage costs as the data has to be updated regularly.
I had thought I would do a website first then develop the app based on feedback and interest. Also thinking of costs, my understanding was that a website/blog is cheaper.
As for monetizing, that’s been a hard nut. I’ve considered all sorts including ads😂, subscriptions using a freemium model- basic info free, members get access to info on special deals while we get a commission from outlet on actual purchases, sale of historical data., eventually perhaps provision of services like shopping and delivery.
Wow, wow, wow, thanks again to everyone who responded. I have gotten super feedback & support ( for free!!!) , kicking myself for not having done this earlier. Radar is a great community
I’m decided to work on functional spec & customer discovery in more detail- while I step up my search for co-founders. From reading Radar and other research, its is similar to (abi harder than??) looking for a life partner . have to change my approach considerably to get the right people on board.
So far I’ve attended a few (3) tech start-up events to learn and expand my network. Also reviewing existing network to see if any of my tech-savvy friends or colleagues was interested or could recommend someone but I think my network is too old- mostly people in their 40s and above.
. Your technical co-founder will work closely with them while you start working on the business side to get customers for the finished product.
thanks, I totally get the importance of this.
. have to change my approach considerably to get the right people on board.