Moving faster

I find it's not easy to be efficient when I'm building something by myself. Given a goal, discovering the 'right' next step can be surpisingly tricky.

I have to watch out for time traps, where I can get stuck and take much longer to progress than I need to.

Over time, I've come to recognize a few signs to look out for when building something to be used by other people:

• Building something without being fairly sure that the audience needs it, or will appreciate it.
• Trying to make a small part of it amazing, when it's something that might go completely unnoticed
• Implementing workarounds or clever solutions in advance, out of the worry that the simpler solution 'might' not be good enough
• Building for too long instead of sharing small updates to get consistent feedback
• Worrying about aspects like performance or aesthetics without considering how much it actually matters to the end user at this point in time

If I had a popular product or service that's getting a lot of use and making enough revenue, these signs might be less important.

But if my goal is to build an MVP and get feedback quickly, I think these are signs that I can move much faster than my current rate.