Ask HN: Advice on when it is acceptable to simply "hack something together"? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Advice on when it is acceptable to simply "hack something together"?

7 pointsyobriefcase2 comments

Firstly apologies for the possibly open ended question. Like, I assume, most people who will read this I have a ton of ideas and experiments I want to undertake. The problem is of course that between my day job and my family there isn't a great deal of time. So obviously I prioritise and tackle things when I can. When I start a new project I start doing it with quality and "doing it right" foremost in my mind which leads to the next problem. With limited time I find it incresingly difficult to maintain momentum when I hit a "boring" spot (usually writing some authentication module - but that is oly one example). I am then suddenly drawn to the next shiny idea and the current one ends up in the great pile of TODOs that only ever grows.

So my question is - are there any recommended books, articles or techniques that outline how to stay focused and push on through or know when to cut your losses or more importantly deciding when it is best just to ditch "the right approach" and just hack something out?

Do you want to do this for fun or business? If purely for fun, then I don't see any major flaws in your current approach. Sure, you end up with unfinished projects but you're hopefully learning tons and having a blast.

But if you're thinking about structuring things so you can better go from ideas to businesses, you need to reevaluate your entire approach. You need tools that can practically guide you through the stages of creating a software business, not just a general philosophy of getting things done.

Currently in the startup world, there's an interesting convergence between customer development and lean as applied to tech startups. Customer development is described in Steven Blank's "The Four Steps to the Epiphany" and Eric Ries' "The lean startup" is the book on lean startups. Both Blank and Ries have contributed to this convergence that I talk about at their respective sites [1] [2] but there's also overviews available [3] [4]. But why am I even recommending these two approaches? Because they cover business development from start to finish from as applied to software startups, so you know the advice is specific to our industry and very practical in nature. If you're serious about the business of software, customer development and lean startup will help you create a business with better certainty of execution and outcome. Together they provide a very potent combination of roadmap and compass, and principles and philosophy.

[1] http://steveblank.com/

[2] http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/

[3] http://www.recessmobile.com/blog/my-take-on-customer-develop...

[4] http://danielmckenzie.com/blog/2010/07/design-thinking-custo...

Interesting. Your answer has really made me think. I guess my problem is the feeling of never really finishing anything (to a satisfying level anyway). I suppose its not a big issue as everything is just for fun and not for business.

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