17 DON'Ts and 32 DO's from 20 years of real projects
After 20 years of building software, I've observed the same patterns repeat: brilliant ideas that fail due to avoidable mistakes.
Not complex technical issues. Simple strategic errors that cost months of work and thousands of dollars.
The Most Expensive Mistakes I've Seen:
❌ Building the full product before talking to users
Real example: A team spent 8 months building a "perfect" project management tool. When they launched, users wanted something completely different. They had to scrap 70% of the code.
❌ Choosing technology based on trends, not needs
Real example: A startup built its MVP with microservices architecture because "that's what Netflix uses." Six months later, they had 3 engineers just maintaining infrastructure instead of building features.
❌ Skipping the "boring" parts (documentation, error handling, analytics)
Real example: A successful app had no analytics for the first year. They had no idea which features users actually used. When they finally added tracking, 60% of their "core features" had <5% usage.
What Actually Works:
After hundreds of projects, I've distilled everything into 17 DON'Ts and 32 DO's — each one learned the hard way.
Things like:
- ✅ Start with the riskiest assumption, not the easiest feature
- ✅ Build for 100 users, not 100,000
- ✅ Choose boring, proven tech over exciting new frameworks
These aren't theoretical tips. Each one comes with a real project example and the exact reasoning behind it.
Why This Matters
The difference between a product that succeeds and one that fails often comes down to decisions made in the first few weeks — before a single line of code is written.
Most developers (including past me) learn this through expensive trial and error.
I wrote "Think Smart, Spend Less" to give you the intuition I wish I had 20 years ago — so you can avoid the mistakes that cost me years of wasted effort.
76 pages. No theory. Just practical, battle-tested advice.
If you're building a digital product (or considering it), this could save you months of work.
👉 Check it out here:
https://practicalguides.carrd.co/
Top comments (0)