
Ask HN: What are your biggest roadblocks when building a new project/SaaS? - dinkleberg
I find that auth is always a personal pain point whenever I start a new side project. I&#x27;m curious what other people find as their common stumbling points.
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lethologica
Myself.

The Process is usually

1 - Think of idea

2 - Research idea

3 - Continue researching the idea for several months, promising myself that
the more information I have, the better equipped I'll be to tackle the project

4 - Idea goes from "Simple idea X" to "This will be the new Google"

5 - Get so wrapped up in the previous stage that I lose track of the simple
original idea.

6 - Get overwhelmed

7 - Begin to think "Well, X does this idea better anyway, why even bother?"

8 - Sulk

9 - Forget idea

10 GOTO 1

~~~
ariosto
Damn it you speak my language.

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adventured
The last stage of building the thing (say there are four stages), which always
seems to take me at least 50% of the total build time. That involves force-
grinding my way through many of the things I enjoy the least, some of which I
intentionally leave for the end. It involves a lot of small adjustments, going
back over things I intentionally left half-baked as a stand-in, bug fixes (I
include fixing UI & UX problems or flaws with that), trimming down unnecessary
bloat in the CSS & JS, doing a double or triple check on security, double
checking legal, double checking database performance (making sure there are no
obvious bottlenecks), finalizing user guides (FAQs, etc etc), and doing a lot
of full run-throughs on the product from initial sign-up onward. Also just
generally trying to find aspects I can break in the system, simulating as a
normal user. I dislike the time sink of all of that, even though it's
necessary. My productivity drops considerably with my dislike of the process
of pushing through the things I hate doing.

I built an auth system seven or eight years ago that I regularly evolve and
reuse. That goes into place on the first day, with usually minor adjustments
per project and it just works. Before that auth was always an annoying chore.

~~~
bobbonew
+1 to building an auth and evolving it.

I do the same thing and do it for the entire “core”. Templating, session
management, database tie in (all for a stateless, cloud app).

I improve it every project and it’s easy to start from there than scratch. I
don’t like using available base code due to not needing 90% of features and it
always feels like bloat.

------
bootloop
Usually, when I have a "good" idea, I set myself a big milestone and work
extremely hard and focused towards it.

Its usually new tech or in a new domain so I do all the research and get the
workflow from beginning to end working.

The problem is, this milestone is usually 85% of a prototype and 20% of a
product. And at this point all the fun and motivation is gone and "launching"
was never so interesting to me as "getting this finally to work".

So usually I commit my code at this point, push it and go do something else.
:)

Honestly it only ever worked once for me and that was when I showed the
prototype to an audience and they kept me motivated to keep going but I have a
feeling this is not the best way to go about it.

~~~
ivanfon
> Honestly it only ever worked once for me and that was when I showed the
> prototype to an audience and they kept me motivated to keep going but I have
> a feeling this is not the best way to go about it.

To me this seems like the way to go - build a prototype and get it out there
as soon as you can. The feedback will keep you motivated, show you if the
product is good/useful/needed, and guide you on what direction to go next.

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jefflinwood
I tend to use Rails for new projects, and the devise gem is pretty
straightforward for auth, so that part is covered.

On Node.js projects, using passport isn't quite as easy, so that is a bit of a
pain point.

My biggest stumbling point is probably the UI - it's easier for me to work
with something that "looks" like a finished project, than it is to work with
plain basic Bootstrap 4.

~~~
rtcoms
May be you should just buy a them from themeforest.

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udayrddy
After launching 4 products(launched the latest, a couple of months back) in 5
years (1.5y full time Masters). Here is what I realized

    
    
      1. what is the motivation - a pain killer or a vitamin
    
      2. Decide - Is this to add income to your regular job
    
      3. Decide - If not 2, think of cost to run it
    
      4. Decide - How do you want to manage this, when you wake up next day with another cash cow SAAS idea
    
      5. clarity - time you want to spend on this EVERY DAY, to not regret later
    
      6. Decide - What is that only feature you want to release in the MVP
    
      7. Set - timelines, STOP pressing yourself into the stress; easy goals and relaxed timelines
    
      9. Launch - no better place than HN to release MVP
    
    

On top of all these, STOP thinking going fulltime into it until the PROFITS at
least match your regular job salary

~~~
codesternews
Why "what is the motivation - a pain killer or a vitamin" what does this mean.
Could you please clarify.

~~~
udayrddy
I meant to re-think on the problem you are solving. Will it be used as a pain
killer or a supplement.

Often, people ignore supplements, cannot ignore the pain killer.

Eg: Yelp (pain killer) solved the pain by putting all restaurants together. I
built a (vitamin) plugin (lemony - chrome extension), to display restaurant's
FDA ratings - while you can't completely ignore FDA ratings but easy to
overlook.

------
SamReidHughes
Managing my personal psychology, of staying on task, holding a whip against
myself to work on what's important.

~~~
onesmallcoin
I generally find other people to hit me with a broom until I finish the
project I'm currently working on. This is not renewable because generally
these people don't fully understand the product I am building and at the same
time the whole broom as a service does get expensive. I think if we can get
too the point where we distribute the brooms in such a way that people do not
need a third party for their sweeping needs that humanity as a whole might
finally be able to finish a project.

------
pearjuice
Finding a competitor and thinking "this thing already looks good has the
features I would build and already has a team working on it, why not use
this?" and I can't counter my own argument. Into the bin it goes and Netflix
binging begins.

~~~
sixQuarks
You seem to be doing it wrong. You should try to find an organic problem that
you can’t find a good solution for, than solve that problem.

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Silhouette
Payment processing and managing subscriptions. Huge time sinks, and the off-
the-shelf solutions to these problems generally range from bad to awful (not
helped in the former case by industry and government rules that make actually
good implementation all but impossible).

------
alexjray
Working full-time

~~~
udayrddy
100% NO "when building"

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break_the_bank
My biggest hurdle is what Steven Pressfield calls the resistance. I come up
with project ideas, get started and then start procrastinating. Coming back
from the working and getting to work on my side project tops the list of
hurdles, UI/UX is at the second place but far from the top.

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AndreFvchs
My pain point are the last 10% of a project. Stuff you couldn't figure out
yet, obscure bugs and being stuck.

Building a quick MVP and running closed alpha/beta tests helps me push through
it though. Getting feedback on your project and feeling some kind of progress
is a great cure.

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97-109-107
The distance or timesink which is the full route from

1\. db model

2\. orm/client mapping

3\. some sort of ui that can crud the above

------
mooreds
Market validation.

