When I recently received an email with the subject line 'finished' it marks the culmination of 20 months of development to bring our new app, to the brink of launch.
Here's seven of the most important lessons I've learnt.
1. Don't over Multi-task
At one point, i had a 'mentor' his terrible advice was to attack on as many fronts as possible. Bad Idea. And my then CTO told me so. I didn't take the advice from the CTO, and at one point, had three products, all half built, all buggy, all not fit for purpose. When I stripped two of them away, and just focussed on one, my stress levels dropped and the one product got built, is bug free and fit for purpose.
2. Be Patient
Things will break, things will go wrong, your team might not fix or figure out a fix for days or weeks. Patience, is a virtue.
3. Things will take wayyyyyyyy longer than you think
Some jobs, have a definite time limit, for instance, making toast will take five minutes, doing the laundry, will take 1 hour. Developing apps and trying things no one else has.. kinda hard to put a definite timescale on that one. Whatever you think it'll take, double that and add a bit of extra
4. Don't Stop Developing your Live Product
As we have now learnt, bringing in a whole new product takes a long time. That means the original app we have in the app market, hasn't had an update now, for the best part of two years. A better move, would have been to have carried on adding small features to the app - but hey ho, that never happened.
5. Tackle the hardest things first
You know that tricky task that no-one has done, but you know it can be done, but you don't know how... stop procrastinating and just do it. First, before the easy bits
6. Don't get set in your ways
This is a tricky one, because the developers will always be clashing with product managers who want the latest feature added - now, even tho it wasn't in the product at the start of the project. Be brave enough to change, if you feel in your boots, that change has to made.
7. Believe in your Product
If you don't no-one will. Fight through the dark lonely hours, where you worry about costs, functionality, your purpose on this planet. Keep going, keep going, and keep going some more.
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