I have always heard the cliché,
“If you have an idea, build fast, ship an MVP, go live, and then make it better.”
It made sense to me theoretically, but I never understood the true meaning until I experienced it myself.
In January of this year, I had an idea to build a project to practice my new skills and create a portfolio. I decided to build Vitiket.com — a Nigerian tech event ticketing platform.
After doing some research and watching YouTube videos on how to build it, I started building.
When I started building it, it was the most important thing to me. I worked on it all my waking hours, as I had no other commitments and was trying to land my first tech gig. My goal was to go live with the first MVP before April 15th, and I was working hard to meet that deadline.
By April 1st, I had purchased the domain (vitiket.com) and built the core functionalities:
- Authentication
- Event creation and update
- DB integration using MongoDB
- Ticket generation with QR Code
- Ticket verification
All that was left was to fine-tune the UI—the landing page, social functionalities (like, share, and save events), a user dashboard, and an event search and filter on the events page. I was on track to achieve my target of going live with the first MVP on April 15th.
Then, on April 9th, I got my first paid gig: working with a team to build a Tax Management System (TMS) for the Akwa Ibom State Internal Revenue Service. The gig quickly grew into a full-time role. Suddenly, Vitiket was no longer my priority. I told myself, “I’ll come back to it once things settle down,” as we were given a very short deadline to deliver.
Honestly, for the first few weeks of the project, I had no time to work on Vitiket. We were working on the TMS project day and night, even sleeping at the office for weeks without going home.
By early June, I was done with my core task on the project (frontend), and I had some breathing space. But by then, I had lost the drive and motivation to build Vitiket. Weeks passed, then months. My friends kept asking me:
“How far with Vitiket?”
I always had an excuse: “Work is hectic.” “I’ll pick it up this weekend.” “I’m planning on changing the UI theme.” Deep down, I was dragging my feet.
The Wake-Up Call
Then one day, a friend sent me a link: vtickets.site. He told me with excitement,
“Is this your platform. Nice. Congrats! I just registered for an event using your platform.”
I froze. Because it wasn’t mine. It was someone else’s. A real, working platform with the same idea I’d been sitting on. Even worse, they had:
- Almost the same name (vitiket vs vtickets)
- Almost the same UI and features
- And most importantly: they were already live.
When my friend realized it wasn’t mine, he was so disappointed in me. In that moment, I learned a crucial lesson:
You are not the only one with that idea. Somehow, the universe shares ideas with other people, and it’s up to whoever ships first. I had been beaten to the market by my own procrastination.
Lesson 1: Ideas Don’t Wait
I learned the hard way that ideas are cheap—execution is what matters. While I was dragging my feet and procrastinating, someone else was building. The internet doesn’t pause for anyone. If you delay too long, someone else will launch, get users, and take the lead.
Lesson 2: Pivoting is Not Failure
At first, I was crushed. I even thought about dropping Vitiket completely. But after the frustration cooled, I realized this wasn’t the end. I decided to pivot. Last week, I started rebranding vitiket to Dachaven—a tech event and community platform. Viket.com? It's now a brand-new idea that I am so excited to start building.
Lesson 3: Action Beats Perfection
The truth is, I was waiting for the perfect UI design and kept changing and tweaking the UI. But that "perfect" design never came.
What This Means for Me Now
- Momentum matters. Start small, but start now.
- The market rewards speed. Shipping beats "thinking about shipping." Ship fast, ship now, and improve later.
- Every experience is a lesson. I learned my lesson and will keep moving forward.
- A pivot is not a loss. Sometimes, it’s the beginning of something stronger.
I’ve also realized that part of learning in public—through this blog—is about owning the failures and the pivots, not just the wins. So here I am, documenting the messy side of my journey.
Now What?
I’m now all in: Dachaven will launch as my event + community management platform. Procrastination cost me the first version of Vitiket, but it also gave me something more important: clarity and urgency.
This post was originally published on blog.gregharis.io on September 2, 2025.
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