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Discussion on: I made 2 marketing microapps: one failed, one didn't. What did I learn? 🦧

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barelyhuman profile image
Reaper

I've seen this and done this myself, a lot of developers get down to code the whole thing when the basic requirement in cases of certain services can be handled by existing tools and services and hooking them up together.

When tillwhen was built, it was built as a full fledged app with a the whole web UI and everything. Looking back, I could've had more success by just creating a slack app and seeing the response and then building a proper web UI would've saved me an extra day or two worth of effort.

Next time, plan out if the service/product you're trying to sell does really need a full fledged scratch creation or can you just use an existing service to start off first.

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joelpatrizio profile image
Joel Patrizio

Hey, thanks for sharing your experience here!

Agree about using third party solutions when you're validating an idea. It can save you some valuable time at the start of your project.

Another approach I've seen it's to create a waitlist, and see if there is any interest in your idea, even before you build anything.

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barelyhuman profile image
Reaper

True, the waitlist can help but then we gotta make sure we don't add an imaginary feature in there.
It's worth jumping in a failing like this though, helps you analyse everything that went wrong. Just reading all this online doens't work in terms of implementation unless actually done.

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joelpatrizio profile image
Joel Patrizio

That's true! I also think it was worthy to try, since it didn't take too much time to build either.

Thanks Reaper, I wish you the best with your projects!

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barelyhuman profile image
Reaper

Wish you the same!