That costs more than a Ford Focus!!

So now I have my prototype, aka the blueprint, for what I want Gatsby to be. It's got all the bells and whistles that I envisioned. Calendar synching, cute invites that can be texted or emailed to your friends, budget polls, booking, and so much more!! This is why prototyping is fun, you get to think as BIG as you want. However, I know that I need to do testing with users in order to determine if these are features that you will actually use. That means scaling back the big ideas to what is called an MVP--minimum viable product. The idea is that your first build only hosts your CORE feature(s) in order to prove viability and gain traction. The next thing I did was take that beautiful prototype and slimmed it down to what I thought I needed for an MVP candidate.

I then began reaching out to developers to see what it would take to get this "little" app built. If you have ever built a house or done an extensive renovation project, it was a lot like that. You show a design of your dream home to the contractor, they tell you how much it will cost, and then you spiral. You are first to abandon some of your favorite customizations until you have just the basics required to call it a house-- a roof, some walls, electricity, and plumbing . . . if you are lucky.

The initial quote for the app development was 6-figures. 😲😲😲😲 "I'm sorry sir, I could buy 3 vehicles for that price". While I am prepared to throw as much sweat equity and brain power at this product as possible, I do not have an extra $100k sitting around. Unfortunately, most funders either want to see traction before they will consider an investment or want you to be a former founder of a successful startup. A bit of a CHICKEN vs THE EGG situation (more on that in a later post).

So what's next??? How do I get this house built??? 💡ANSWER: start cutting back to the basics. Do you really need that crown molding, heated bathroom floors are definitely out, and you can forget about a finished basement!!!

I went through the MVP outline and stripped out anything that wasn't a HAVE TO HAVE. I also decided to do this MVP lite in a web version to keep the development costs down. With the change of scope, the price of this first phase decreased significantly and I am able to self-fund. The GATSBY MVP is on track to release in the next few weeks. Thank you for joining me on this journey and helping me to test this out!