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How to create and launch a startup in 10.5 hours

August 16, 2007 | mark | Startups

I just launched FEEDJIT. It took me about 10.5 hours (4pm until 2:30am) from the first time my hand touched the keyboard until I fixed the last bug and went live. I got a question on the Seattle Tech Startup list about how I spent my 10.5 hours. So here’s a brief summary:

  • I drew a mockup in Fireworks. It started getting complicated with user registration and so on. So I basically binned it and just wrote the software, but the mockup gave me an idea of the most basic value prop. So I made a decision to go out the door with the very very basics and see if it’s something users actually want. (1 hour)
  • I designed the database schema in SQL commands using a text editor. I mentioned this CompSci quote to a friend yesterday: “Get your data structures correct first, and the rest of the program will write itself.”. Doing the data structures in the form of a schema forced me into making all the hard decisions of what features I’m keeping and what I’m not going to have time to implement. (1 hour)
  • I wrote the functional app. I find that if I do graphical or UI work early on it can become very time consuming as I try to get just the right dropshadow on some element. So I just dove in and wrote the Javascript and server components. The app doesn’t require any registration so I could just write the widget and the server code to store and deliver the stats that are displayed. (roughly 6 hours)
  • Then the last thing I did was create the home page (the only page on the site). After cranking out code for 6 hours I was too tired to faff with dropshadows and so on. So it became purely functional. (roughly 2 hours)

I already have a server set up at serverbeach where I host this. It’s on a 10 megabit backbone connection but doesn’t cost me much. So I basically added a virtualhosts section to the httpd.conf file and copied the source code into the proper directories. I then compressed the javascript and used my SQL text files and the mysql client to dump the schema into the database. I brought it online and couldn’t figure out why everything was appearing to be in Denver, Colorado. Then I realized I’d hard-coded my own IP address into the Geo location routines. Shows you how you can screw up when you’re rushed. I fixed that and it worked perfectly.

I hope there’s some value in that. I think the smartest thing I did was to drop everything except the features that would test whether this is a product my target market would actually find useful. That remains to be seen of course, but I’m hopeful. We’re adding quite a few new blogs per hour now.

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My name is Mark Maunder. I've been blogging since around 2003 when I started on Movable Type and ended up on WordPress which is what I use to publish today. With my wife Kerry, I'm the co-founder of Wordfence which protects over 5 million WordPress sites from hackers and is run by a talented team of 36 people. I'm an instrument rated pilot and I fly a Cessna 206 along with a 1964 Cessna 172 in the Pacific Northwest and Colorado. I'm originally from Cape Town, South Africa but live in the US these days. I code in a bunch of languages and am quite excited about our emerging AI overlords and how they're going to be putting us to work for them.