Ask HN: What should we do

8 points by warewolf 9 years ago | 11 comments

We need some advice on our next step. We currently have a product that is in the App Store that we launched for user validation. The problem is, we now have that validation but the product isn't scalable. We outsourced the development so the backend isn't what it should be it crashes and has lots of bugs.

The reason we did this is because my cofounder and myself are design and marketing backgrounds. However it served its purpose as a Validation tool. We are now planning on doing a Burbn --> Instagram move. We will be using our feedback to build a better product and hit the market on larger scale.

My question is should we find a Technical CoFounder who can fix the issues on the product we have? Which we all know finding a quality CoFounder is hard. Where is the best place to find CoFounders?

hartator 9 years ago |

I am actually looking for a CTO position at an early startup. Hit me up by email: my HN username @gmail.com I'll send you more info. about myself and I would love to hear more about what you are trying to build.

brianwawok 9 years ago |

So question.. what determines "passed" vs "failed" user validation?

My question for that is you get so caught up in the excitement of a new product.. it is very easy to say "hey 10 people liked it, good product". How do you know the product is REALLY user validated?

warewolf 9 years ago | |

20000 DAU 15% of the users open 100 times a day. This is higher than snapchats early stage data.

However we have recently been told by a big name investor he doesn't consider anything under 30k user validation. So I could be wrong.

My concern is that the product has bugs and backend isn't ready to support massive growth.

niftich 9 years ago | | |

Load test your backend -- not the 'actual' production backend but a copy with the same characteristics. That is, call your backend functions in an order and manner that's consistent users' actual usage, with as many simultaneous requests as you can. There are many products that can do this, one free one is JMeter [1].

This will help you figure out if you can scale your way out of the problem (i.e. throw more servers at it), or if it's fundamentally broken beyond saving.

[1] http://jmeter.apache.org/

brianwawok 9 years ago | | |

Awesome that seems pretty good validation

omginternets 9 years ago |

I'd say this all depends on the nature of your product. Having a technical cofounder is always helpful, but not a priori necessary.

What are you making? I may be interested in joining as CTO.

warewolf 9 years ago | |

Mainstream Slack send me an email brayson@letsprattle.com

bbcbasic 9 years ago |

You may consider hiring a contractor too. Less commitment on your part than giving away part of the biz. Especially if you just need some performance tuning.

warewolf 9 years ago | |

This is something we are discussing as well. We are weighing all of our options but gotta move quickly. We think having a technical cofounder has its advantages for championing ideas, improvements and reassurance. Its hard to find talent that sees beyond the code that doesn't want to work on their own ideas by themselves.

We also think finding the right contractor is smart idea too because it will allow us to make the changes without equity like you said. Which than we can scale the product on our own to get the traction/funding we need to hire the right CTO.

We've really only had one investor question us on not having a CTO anyway.

webtechgal 9 years ago |

> Where is the best place to find CoFounders?

I'd say you're there already!! :-) All the best.