Idea vs Execution 🥊
Hello makers,
This week we review a brief case study in building and launching your idea quickly.
On Wednesday, Pieter Levels announced that he was going to build a product for restaurants to use QR codes for menus.
It's one thing to have an idea. It's an entirely different thing to execute it.
Let's take a look at how this played out.
If you've eaten out at a restaurant lately, you've likely seen QR codes for menus. This is to avoid having to touch a physical menu, and therefore avoid any Coronavirus germs that may be lingering on its surface.
While reading Pieter's Twitter thread, what stood out to me more than anything was the number of responses along the lines of, "I had that idea too!"
Just read these replies.
@DenisBosire
Can't believe this, just started working on this today 💀💀 ,was at a restaurant yesterday and got the idea to do this. Was going to be my weekend project.
https://twitter.com/DenisBosire/status/1318892192925175808
@filipp_pl
I was building similar thing, but wanted to go first to restaurants and get feedback from them. What's your idea on getting traction in this field, since restaurant owners/managers are mostly living in offline world?
https://twitter.com/filipp_pl/status/1318901336319135744
@randomor
Congrats! Great MVP. I’ve been parking this for almost two years now. I’ve had this idea since going back to China 2018 and seeing it everywhere and it stuck with me. The countdown on the page now actually counts up now... 😂🤦♂️
https://twitter.com/randomor/status/1318919459541798917
@ryanseanbadger
Was going to build this a few weeks back, with aim to add in ordering via the menu too, QR code would include table nunber so staff knew who order was for, then add payments via it to escape dirty cash. As usual, I couldn’t be bothered. 🙃
https://twitter.com/ryanseanbadger/status/1318903679034957831
@parkeragee
I created something similar the other day https://covidmenusonline.com. It is still in test mode, so you can create an account and check it out. It just needs a drag and drop menu builder to be complete.
https://twitter.com/parkeragee/status/1318896242332676096
@AxelVaindal
Had the same idea a while back, we worked a bit in this but struggled to make the restaurant/bar adopt the idea 🤔
I'm really curious about how you'll ship this to customer not really fond of technology, this is a great case study 😊
https://twitter.com/AxelVaindal/status/1318906488237293569
And on, and on. You can scroll down to see maker after maker talking about how they had that idea, were planning on building it, etc., etc.
So how was Pieter able to build this and get it out to the public so quickly? Why did his work? Quite simply, because he kept it simple. A few pointers:
The market was validated with plenty of competition, but Pieter went after a specific, simpler, better execution
He built in public and immediately launched on ProductHunt
He used the technology he was familiar with, mainly PHP and jQuery
He launched with an MVP, knowing he could monetize and market to customers later
So the next time you have a great idea, execute it! Before someone else like Pieter pulls it off.
Keep making, and thanks for reading! 🙌
Hit reply to tell me what you're making. I'm looking for anyone interested in talking about their own side-projects and maker journey, so speak up if you'd like to appear in Serial Maker. I'd also love to know what you thought of this issue, and what you want to hear about in the future. Check out the past editions if you missed them, and don't forget to continue the conversation on Discord!
Until next week,
Craig 👋