What a Day.
I had one clear goal: move the startup forward. And I did—but not in the way I expected.
Started the morning with back-to-back user interviews. Insight bomb dropped around 10:20am—same pain point came up in both: handoffs between tools are killing team flow. Noted. That’s the third interview this week flagging the same friction. It’s noisy early on, but this? This feels like signal.
So I sprinted on the prototype. Updated onboarding flows in Figma, added quick context screens to reduce “where am I?” confusion. UX is still duct-taped together, but it's starting to click. I actually watched someone go “Oh, that makes sense” on a screen share. Gold.
Issue: I almost derailed myself mid-afternoon digging too deep into backend choices. I was elbows-deep comparing Firebase pub/sub latency vs. Supabase listen channels before I caught myself. The reminder:
"Ship solutions, not architecture. Optimize for momentum, not elegance."
So here’s the compromise: Supabase POC going live tomorrow morning, Firebase gets 48 hours after that. Whichever feels faster to build with wins Round One. No gold-plating. Not choosing forever—just choosing for now.
Advisor update: had a quick unexpected call. Much-needed grounding. His takeaway: “You’re not building features, you’re trying to shrink someone’s workday by 10 minutes. Hunt that.” Immediately rewrote my pitch doc with that line in mind.
Community front: one of my comments on Indie Hackers got a reply. Just a small nudge, but it reminded me: someone out there is paying attention.
What I Learned Today (Mini How-To)
How to Validate a Product Direction Without Overbuilding:
- Talk to 5 users.
- Write down their workflow in simple terms.
- Circle the moment that sucks the most.
- Mock just that flow.
- Watch if they say, “That’s better.”
That's it. Don’t solve everything—solve one burning annoyance first.
Wins Today
- 2 user interviews → 1 confirmed pain point.
- Prototype updated → onboarding makes sense now to at least one user.
- Supabase vs Firebase narrowed → POC in motion.
- Strategic nudge from advisor → realigned pitch with user outcomes.
Going to bed tired but clearer than I woke up. That counts.