How to start your company in less than two weeks
Tags: webdev, programming, tutorial, career
Published: 2022-08-28 18:39:41

One of the best things when you're a developer is that you have power in your hands to start a company with 0 money spent. Sometimes it doesn't have to take much time. You can go from idea to first customers in less than two weeks. That's what we have done with [Engagement Builder](https://engagementbuilder.com/?ref=devto).

## 1. Idea

The first step of all steps is to find niche that you enjoy the most but that has paying potential. E.g. you can enjoy teaching kids cool stuff, but they are not really good customers in terms of paying. 

After that you have to engage with that community. Once you start engaging you'll see some problems they have. Then, you take some of those problems and start asking around how big they are. The bigger they are, for them, they're going to pay (more) for it.

**Example**
Since my co-founder [Emme Maker](https://twitter.com/EmmeMaker) and [I](https://twitter.com/SikiraAmer) spent so much time on Twitter we saw that a lot of people from our Twitter circles complain about Twitter UI and how they would love to engage more, but it just takes a lot of their time. Emme came up with an idea of Engagement Builder, a tool that would solve their problems and offer even more than they described.

Additional reading on [Idea stage](https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/the-shape-of-a-problem-in-the-wild/)

## 2. Validation

After you find a problem you need to talk to your potential customers to make sure that this problem you want to solve really is a problem. This part is called validation.

You need to ask them some questions in order to determine how much of a problem it really is. But be careful HOW you ask your questions. Don't be suggestive with your questions because, otherwise, you'll spent weeks building a product that (next to) no one wants to buy. 

Ask the right questions now in order to avoid confusion and lost time later.

If you see that the first idea wasn't really great, go on to the next one and ask about it. Repeat this step until you're satisfied with the result.

**Example**

I asked a lot of my friends in DMs following questions: 
* Do you have any problems replying to mentions on Twitter? (80% said yes)
* What is your biggest problem of all while doing that? (Most of the people said UI and overall experience especially when you have more than 10 mentions)
* Would it help you if there was a tool that would show those mentions in one place and all you needed to do is to think of something to reply (A lot of people said yes. Most of those that said no are those that are not really interested in Twitter)

This gave us proper first step validation

Additional read on [product validation](https://www.altexsoft.com/blog/product-idea-validation/)

## 3. Confirm validation

The third step is maybe the most important step before you really dive into real product development. For this step we created a landing page and we collected the leads. Some people create paywall and see if there is anyone willing to pay for their not-yet-made product.

The first way works good, but the second way is even better. If there are people willing to pay for a product that is still not created, then you are 100% sure that you're onto something. 

We decided to use the first way and we were collecting the leads. During 2 weeks, we crushed every goal we set, in terms of how many leads we would like to have before beta launch.

## 4. Building product

This step is the hardest because it requires dedication on two levels. You have to build your product, in terms of programming, but you also have to build your product in terms of marketing. I would suggest here to use Twitter and join #buildinpublic community. It's an excellent way to promote your product while talking about how you're building it.

In order for this #buildinpublic campaign to be successful you have to be honest and share ups and downs. If you share ups people will support you and boost your motivation even more. If you share downs there are a lot of fellow programmers who have been through the same and they, pretty often, provide quite good solution to your problem. So it is a win-win.

Additional read for this part is a book by Arvid Kahl [Zero to Sold](https://zerotosold.com/)

### Programming side

If you're building a product you want to build it with the programming language and framework you know the best. You want to be as fast as possible, because you don't want to spend too much time on a product that may or may not work. 

Don't go for the fanciest JS framework that just showed on the market. Pick something you know well, have experience with it, and you can build fast with it.

In the beginning you just want to build a product that solves the problem. In later stages you can focus on refactoring, optimisation and other important stuff.

### Marketing side

Push on as many streams as possible. Before you know you'll see that some work better than other. Whatever works double down on it, what doesn't minimise it.

Also, don't just push anywhere. Push where your audience is hanging. E.g. our audience is on Twitter and Indie Hackers. We're pushing pretty hard on these two platforms, while trying some new and maintaining other platforms.

Additional read on techniques you can use to [market your SaaS](https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/strategies-saas-businesses-grow)

## 5. MVP

This is where things get really interesting. You're at the end of your second week and you can already see your product takes shape. MVP often includes the least of your features to show what your product can do and what problems it can solve.

Once your MVP is ready you should push for public beta test and listen for feedback. 

This is the right time to use those leads you've collected over the last two weeks and send them newsletter/DM. 

Once your product is finally live you can listen for the real feedback. Bugs are important, but at this stage you should be more focused on product feedback. You should listen for following things: 
* What features do you need
* What can you do to make current features more attractive
* Is current product really solving their problems
* Are they coming back to your app

Additional read on [MVP](https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/mvp/) but also [Lean Startup](http://theleanstartup.com/)

### Feedback

Once you're in the public beta your users will give you all sorts of feedback. Be careful and don't jump at first. If someone is asking for something wait for at least few other customers ask for the same thing before building it.

Also, whatever feedback you receive try to talk to other customers about it. Is that something they would like? Would they use it? Is the same thing bothering them? 

Those that didn't return to your app ask why? They'll probably going to give you more insights than you can ever imagine.

Additional read on [User feedback](https://medium.com/mytake/how-to-collect-analyze-and-use-user-feedback-effectively-userguiding-22fd78e74b9a#:~:text=Live%20chat%2C%20short%20surveys%2C%20and,or%20categorize%20the%20inbound%20feedback.) 

## 6. Final step

Once you're finished with the feedback start charging for your app. Don't be scared to ask for money. Because the sooner you ask for money the sooner your app will be better and improved and it will draw more customers to it.

There is no definitive guide on how to put a price on a product but the least you should do is to cover your costs and earn some money to keep you going until you create some more features.

As soon as you start creating more features start charging more money. We started with 5.99€, but in a month we decided to charge 7.99€. Pretty soon we will increase our price again, because the value of our software and the number of problems we're solving has also increased.

Additional read on [how to price a SaaS product](https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/price-saas-product)

## Summary

You should find your favourite niche that can pay for your services. Once you do that find their problems and validate your ideas. Validate your ideas first through conversations than through some lead collection or pay-wall. After that start building your product and do marketing for it, heavily. Push your MVP as soon as you can and start collecting feedback. Be careful with feedback, because you can spiral down. Once you're done with the feedback start charging for your product and don't be afraid to put a price on it.

I hope this will help you at least a little bit. If you have any questions you can reach my [DMs](https://twitter.com/SikiraAmer) and just refer to this articles. I will help you with whatever I can, for free of course.

If you want to see how far we have come in 2 months then you can click [here](https://engagementbuilder.com/?ref=devto).

Thank you and good luck on your journey.