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I have a project in my head and I want to understand the tech needed to build it

3 points by changer1 ↗ HN
I wanna build this marketplace which I made a submission earlier and talked about it and now i wanna understand if it's technologically feasible and the skillset needed to build it. How can I do it?

16 comments

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talldayo
Just a word of advice about marketplaces; they are not as profitable as you might think. Unless you have some way to force people through your service (eg. a legal mandate or technical limitation), people generally won't want to spend money on your store. The larger you try to make your profit margins, the harder it will be to compete with Amazon and Shein. They have profit margins that are razor-thin, alongside special agreements with mainstream payment processors specifically designed to stop you from competing.

If you do manage to find a niche, then you're invited to a whole new circle of hell in fraud mitigation and chargebacked invoices. You need a really good idea to break into the current scene.

changer1
thanks for the advice. i wanna build an online food delivery marketplace and my aim is not huge profitability actually. i just wanna build something that is useful and agile. and i don't think i'll spend much money until it gets to the breakeven point. so i feel like i should give it a try.
tobinfekkes
I built, maintain, and own an online food delivery marketplace used by a handful of local food producers. Some people license my system to run their own food marketplace, while others just sell directly to us and we do the logistics. I would concur with the above comment that you better have a darn good reason, runway, and resources.

Initial ideas are easy, execution is harder, and maintaining it across time and devices and changing tech is very hard. Delivering static things like books or phone cases or laptop chargers is one thing. Delivering food is a completely different ball game.

I agree with your overall sentiment though, we'd all be better off if our food originated nearer to us and we had the proper systems to make local food more profitable for smaller food producers. But Amazon, WalMart, Costco, Hello Fresh, Full Circle, Blue Apron and dozens of other very deep pockets make it very difficult to keep up. You have to be better at something besides price or convenience, because they're run circles around you with those two. For example, you have certain advantages when you're "small" that an Amazon just simply can't compete with. Things like quality, small quantities, hyper-local, hyper-fresh, customer service, high-touch items, etc. Amazon has disadvantages because of their scale, so lean into those areas that don't scale to get some traction.

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changer1
i just wanna know how to build stuff and understand the skillset needed
tobinfekkes
Find someone who is on a similar or adjacent trajectory and shadow them, learn from them, ask questions, be a sponge. Start building very simple things, and then gradually make them harder. The "Skillset needed" for knowing how to build stuff is years and years of building, breaking, fixing, and rebuilding stuff.
tatsean
Technologically, it should not be an issue at all. To better control cost, you may outsource the technical development works to dev in developing countries. In terms of quality and cost combined, Malaysia should be a good choice.
changer1
people i talked to told me not to outsource tech side. they told me if i outsource tech and make them build a demo, still it won't be attractive for a investor because i don't have the team the debug or improve the app inhouse. what would you say to that? for me i feel like i can give 1k usd and get a demo and progress through it.
tatsean
I guess probably need a trade-off on this. If you have a tech co-founder who can help to implement the idea, that probably is the best. But if no, then need to engage some "outsider" to do the job, the cons for this, probably is the idea could be stolen.
Jugurtha
I wanted to have some background on your earlier submission and checked it out. It turns out I have already commented on it 30 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40844376

This still stands. How many potential customers have you since talked with to de-risk the very "market existence" aspect first?

changer1
none. my go to market strategy is to talk with restaurant chains and tell them i'll cut down their costs and basically fight for their earnings. and i have someone in mind that i can probably reach out to has a restaurant chain spreads over 200 restaurants. the problem is i don't wanna go to talk to him just with the idea. and because my app would require some kind of technical infrastructure i don't wanna start talking with local restaurants. i feel like i can convince the big boys and the locals would follow them.
Jugurtha
>the problem is i don't wanna go to talk to him just with the idea.

Why? It doesn't have to be the idea itself. You can ask questions to check whether it is a problem first as opposed to talking about your solution. What if they're not aware it's a problem, or don't care about it? It's harder to sell a solution to a problem to someone who is not aware of the problem or does not care about the problem than it is to someone who's well aware, who cares about it, and who's tried to solve it but failed.

>and because my app would require some kind of technical infrastructure i don't wanna start talking with local restaurants.

Why?

>i feel like i can convince the big boys and the locals would follow them.

Feel? Wouldn't having actual conversations and learning things that are invisible to you right now beat that and shed light on many things?

changer1
1. he is just someone graduated from my school not someone i know personally my idea is just adding him at linkedin 2. i want restaurants to keep their menus and kinda "host" their menus themselves. and i won't be providing any customer service or something like that. because of that, i want corporate restaurants have tech infrastructure. 3. my only concern is about the product
Jugurtha
>1. he is just someone graduated from my school not someone i know personally

So? You'll talk with many people you didn't personally know. Case in point, we're having this conversation.

>2. i want restaurants to keep their menus and kinda "host" their menus themselves. and i won't be providing any customer service or something like that. because of that, i want corporate restaurants have tech infrastructure.

I'm sure you have reasons that lead you to this, and I'm sure you'll learn many things talking with people in the field.

>3. my only concern is about the product

So many built the best product people never used.

Please get out there and talk with people in a way they'll tell you about their problems and what they've done to solve them or not.

changer1
you are right but i just wanna start doing real stuff. build it. if it won't fit in the market so be it i don't care. i just wanna do something.
Jugurtha
I understand. You have the itch. You want to build it. This is completely understandable. However, it's not like you can, as you don't have the technical skills to do so. In other words, you're refusing to do something you can now, which is probe the market, because you're in hurry to do something you're not yet capable of doing...

What would you say, if you probe a little bit and get a slight understanding of problems, and then, learn how to code just that. Little by little, you learn and stay motivated because you're converging towards something real.

However, if you are completely indifferent to the outcome, then by all means, go ahead; programming is fun for its own sake. It's just that the premise of this conversation was misleading.