Last Friday was a reminder that ideas aren't all that hard to come by. (Especially when you are a student and can feel free to, you know, steal from major companies and try to do it yourself. Because, honestly, my version of Facebook isn't meant to compete with Facebook, but merely demonstrate that I could make one.)
But today, Monday, was all about how putting ideas into practice is hard. Because today, I started to work on my first final project.
I'm calling it ShareCare: a web-based, mobile-ready(?), team-based app for sharing caretaking duties and keeping track of those duties.
And yes, it was inspired by the fact that my girlfriend and I sometimes need to communicate about whether the dog's been out and pooped (or as we say, "was productive").
So, in honor of the difficult process of implementing the (pristine, beautiful, unsullied) idea, here's some photos of notes I made as I attempted to chart out my path on ShareCare.
1) Minimum viable product:
Here's a reminder when doing, well, just about any product. You may be making something incredible, but you start with a deadline and a minimum viable product. Anything that's cool that's not part of the minimum viable product goes into the bucket.
2) "Weeks of programming can save hours of planning":
That's an old coding joke; it's also the reason why I didn't write a line of code until I had mapped out my database and the relations between these entities. (Note: And I still had to go back to change a few things!)
3) Don't be afraid to make mistakes:
If we were supposed to do everything right the first time, we wouldn't have invented erasers. Or, in my case, invented more ink to cross out things--and then even more ink to re-write what I crossed out.
Let's see what I can show you tomorrow.
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