Software is hard. Or rather good software is hard. If it weren’t it wouldn’t be as lucrative or rewarding. I have been saying for quite a while that our app was going through approvals and should be done in the next few weeks. I am also known for my optimism and sure, if everything fell into place perfectly, it would be done in a couple of weeks.
But we all know that often things don’t fall into place perfectly. Partners have other priorities. Holidays take attention away. Refactoring and putting things back together takes time and energy (and often more than you anticipate) and work isn’t nearly as fun as building something fresh. In nearly all software projects there is a period where it slogs a little and the excitement flags. SkillProfile isn’t unique in this.
The great news is that the team here have all been through this before. Alot. So we know that pushing through to the finish line is part of being successful. And we’re pushing through to that finish line.
I would like to share a couple of learnings from this adventure so far –
1 – Pay attention to the details.
When we set out on this design adventure we had ideas for how the app should work and how the data should be related. We had stories and designs and had mostly done our homework. However, something got lost in the communication (not surprising when you are also dealing with a remote developer) and the initial build had a flaw against the original idea. We needed to step back and do a bit of refactoring/rework to set the ship straight and make sure it will serve us through the beta and beyond.
2 – Never underestimate a fresh set of eyes.
I had the fortune of engaging with another developer to have them do some bug fixing work. This person brought a fresh set of eyes to the project and made some really great recommendations for moving it forward.
3 – Don’t get discouraged.
This fall (since HR Tech) has been stressful with other items on my plate and trying to keep the financial house in order for SkillProfile and it would be easy to give up and say “oh well, good try”. It has been challenging when we had to slow down some of our development work for financial reasons right at the point where we needed to refactor the code. This could really have thrown us for a loop. But we believe in what we’re doing and aren’t giving up.
4 – Give yourself a break sometimes and don’t beat yourself up for needing one.
When you are stressed and demands are piling up, as a founder, it can be easy to try to burn the candle at both ends (and in the middle) and beat ourselves up for not getting in front of enough investors, not doing the marketing, not building the network. But founders are people too and we need to be able to unplug, relax and give ourselves the space to be enthusiastic and focused.
5 – Do small things to keep momentum going forward.
While things are moving slower than you would like, keep doing small things every week or two to continue to make progress. Maybe it’s updating the website, or creating this blog post, or even logging a couple of tickets or doing a little bit of competitive research or outreach. Small things that do not take a lot of time or effort can keep you and your project/company from getting stale even if you’re moving more slowly. Iteration isn’t always grandiose, in fact, it usually isn’t grandiose, its a continues set of small things that builds into a big one.
So with that, I’m super excited to share the app walkthrough here – This was one of those small things that I helped me keep the momentum.