Learning Web Development & Launching a SaaS in 50 days

Ok, so I think the website is about 80% done now. By that I mean until it's usable in a basic manner, there's lots of room for improvement afterwards. For example once I've made some money I'll invest in some graphics by a designer to give the page a consistent look instead of my random assortment of graphics i stitched together in gimp.

As I noticed that I started to get bored of coding the website, I switched to creating the product. I'm having a lot of fun with that and (or because) I'm making great progress. I've created the basic structure of the product now. If I didnt want to automate it, I think I could provide a basic version of the service soon, it'll probably take just a few more days of work (assuming I dont hit major problems).
All in all I'm very happy with how this journey is progressing and am confident in getting my service ready until February 1st (32 days left).

I probably won't be able to get too much work done the next few days as I won't be home and will need to start doing some stuff for university again. But I don't see that as a bad thing, as it will prevent me from losing interest in this project because of working on it too much.
 
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27 days left, university starts on tuesday again. Of course I didnt start studying for uni yet because I'm way too focused on this project lol. But sadly I think that will have to change on tuesday.

It feels like I'm not progressing too much on the product because I'm not ticking off much from the todo-list. However I think I'm very close to a point where it will come together nicely and a minimum viable product (MVP) will be almost ready. To be honest the MVP will be quite advanced already, but I don't want to simplify it further, because I'd like it to include all the main features that separate me from the competition.
The more I work on the project though, the more ideas I get for additional features that I can add later on. As I previously mentioned I will sell most of these as add-ons at an extra charge.
 
Hope things are going good for you. This is a good journey to follow and I wish you the best of luck.
 
20 days until launch! Also noticed that my exams in university will start in february too, so that will be fun lol.

Anyways, I'm making good progress on the product! Just started working on the last major feature and then it should be pretty much done (as an advanced MVP). I also beautified the website quite a bit through some minor changes, now I no longer think I need to let a designer rework the entire thing lol, just some parts.

Also I talked about my product with my aunt who runs a business and she is interested in it. I'll just give it to her for free, but what it made me realize is that a lot of my potential customers will probably never google for the search terms I plan on buying ads for. I still plan on targeting the searching people first, as it will be a lot easier, however I will need to figure out a way to reach the people who don't yet know that they want my kind of product :D


Seven4 said:
Hope things are going good for you. This is a good journey to follow and I wish you the best of luck.
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Thanks for the support!
 
14 days left! I'm getting nervous now (because things will probably break for the first customers), but I still think I can get everything ready until then.

Hit a rather complicated problem while developing the product a few days ago, but after taking a bit of a break to focus on uni stuff I came back and tried all the ideas i had and luckily the last one worked. It's an awful hacky solution from a programming view, but the user won't notice lol. But now that that's out of the way, I think there shouldn't be any possibility for such major problems that could completely break the product anymore.
 
Just 3 days left now!

I doubt I can get it done until then, however I managed to solve even more huge problems with the product. I think I will be able to finish the basic version of it today. A different project got in the way of this one, which cost me a few days of work, so I doubt I can finish the website until February 1st. However I'm not too worried about it as I'm very happy I managed to complete this big project in 'almost' 50 days, I assume I will need at most a week more, so less than 60 days. I will report back then to let you all know about my marketing efforts.
 
I know I'm way beyond the planned target date, but I'm still at it lol. Exam phase and other projects that required attention got in the way, but I'm working on finishing the website now, as the product is done. Right now I'm integrating Stripe, which is taking a bit of time because of my pricing model (subscription with a base price and a bunch of potential add-ons).
 
On what language did you build the backend on django? Node? And goodluck man
 
ahmedmani said:
On what language did you build the backend on django? Node? And goodluck man
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The backend is made with Flask. I was debating whether I should go with django or flask, because theyre similar from what ive heard. But I read that flask is easier to learn and requires less code (more high level), so I went with it.
Thank you :)

Quick update:
Stripe should be functional now, I'll also add paypal as those 2 together capture most of the payments on the internet. Later on I'll probably add amazon payments, which is probably convenient for a lot of people, but its not very wide-spread yet, so it's not a priority for me.
Now I also integrated the mailgun API so I can easily send emails to clients (order confirmations and more). Currently looking into how I want to do my email hosting for future manual client communication. Easiest would probably be just paying my domain registrar a few bucks a month for it, but I can't imagine that there's no good free way to do it.
 
Man this is really dragging along. But yea I had to pause working on this because of exams and now some exams even got cancelled because of the corona virus. Oh well, at least I can continue with this now then.

Stripe and Paypal are both working now, paypal was a huge pita. I've also hosted it now on a digitalocean server and its very fast, so Im happy with that. I also get great performance scores on all the test websites, without optimizing for that.
All that's left to do for now is finishing my page layouts+contents and making sure my communication is fitting.

After that I can start marketing, I plan to begin with SEO as I don't have a lot of funds and SEO takes a while to do so it should be started ASAP. Aside from that I have some people I can cold email, will have to see if that will be any good.
 
Aulig said:
Man this is really dragging along. But yea I had to pause working on this because of exams and now some exams even got cancelled because of the corona virus. Oh well, at least I can continue with this now then.

Stripe and Paypal are both working now, paypal was a huge pita. I've also hosted it now on a digitalocean server and its very fast, so Im happy with that. I also get great performance scores on all the test websites, without optimizing for that.
All that's left to do for now is finishing my page layouts+contents and making sure my communication is fitting.

After that I can start marketing, I plan to begin with SEO as I don't have a lot of funds and SEO takes a while to do so it should be started ASAP. Aside from that I have some people I can cold email, will have to see if that will be any good.
Click to expand...
Mine just got cancelled too lol I thought I will be free now and it was my last exam supposed to be easy. Fml
 
Aulig said:
Hey all,

I'm going to develop a website that offers an automated service (saas = software as a service). I want to launch it on February 1st, so 50 days left currently.

What I know already:

- Pretty good at programming with Java etc
- Decent knowledge about the product
- No experience in web development

How much time I have available:
- I will have about 2 weeks of completely free time over Christmas (will obviously spend some of that with family, but will try to get a lot done)
- About 4h a day otherwise, the rest is filled with university and other obligations

The Product:
- Digital
- Can be produced automatically
Can't say much more, sorry!

Promotion:
- SEO
- SEA

I want to have the website ready to be used until February 1st, if I can't produce the product automatically by then, I will just do it by hand for the first customers. That way I can cut my losses sooner if the demand for the product just isn't there for some reason. Also it will allow me to start with SEO as that will take some time too.

Current progress (I started about 3 days ago) :
Website is running locally and user accounts work as intended. Next steps: create and design all pages the website should have

For those interested I will be using Flask to develop the website in python as I already know some python from a few years ago.

Will probably update when the pages are designed.
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Sorry if I caught you wrong, but your plan is to code the website (talking the functionality) in Python - front-end with JavaScript and PHP? MongoDB for the database?
May you go in-depth into the coding part of your project as well as the resources you're implementing (where you're doing your research, any suggested courses, which services you're using (e..g payment processor: stripe co.))? That's an interesting part about a project, especially a project like this :)

I wish you the best of luck on your journey and hopefully you're able to share some more details, as asked above, for your "hungry fans" :P
 
AestheticHustler said:
Sorry if I caught you wrong, but your plan is to code the website (talking the functionality) in Python - front-end with JavaScript and PHP? MongoDB for the database?
May you go in-depth into the coding part of your project as well as the resources you're implementing (where you're doing your research, any suggested courses, which services you're using (e..g payment processor: stripe co.))? That's an interesting part about a project, especially a project like this :)

I wish you the best of luck on your journey and hopefully you're able to share some more details, as asked above, for your "hungry fans" :p
Click to expand...
Thanks for your interest!
I use Flask for the backend, which is in python. For the frontend I write html & css with bootstrap, just a tiny bit of javascript. I have a basic SQLite Database, which can be implemented with the SQLAlchemy Flask addon. In general theres a ton of flask addons that do a lot of the work for me, e.g. user authentication. As a payment processor ive included stripe and paypal, paypal was a lot more work though. Another service I'm using is mailgun to send emails and improvmx to receive emails and redirect them to my gmail (so i dont need a mail server)

I can't recommend any course to be honest as I didnt do one. I just looked for a basic flask project on github and expanded on that. I like doing it that way because I can use the existing code as a reference for whatever new thing I add on. (Like: "I want to add a new page, lets see how the existing pages are added") I find thats way faster than having to research in the internet. But of course I do plenty of googling when I dont know how to solve a problem Im facing.

Let me know if you have any more questions, because I dont know what else to say :D
 
Aulig said:
Thanks for your interest!
I use Flask for the backend, which is in python. For the frontend I write html & css with bootstrap, just a tiny bit of javascript. I have a basic SQLite Database, which can be implemented with the SQLAlchemy Flask addon. In general theres a ton of flask addons that do a lot of the work for me, e.g. user authentication. As a payment processor ive included stripe and paypal, paypal was a lot more work though. Another service I'm using is mailgun to send emails and improvmx to receive emails and redirect them to my gmail (so i dont need a mail server)

I can't recommend any course to be honest as I didnt do one. I just looked for a basic flask project on github and expanded on that. I like doing it that way because I can use the existing code as a reference for whatever new thing I add on. (Like: "I want to add a new page, lets see how the existing pages are added") I find thats way faster than having to research in the internet. But of course I do plenty of googling when I dont know how to solve a problem Im facing.

Let me know if you have any more questions, because I dont know what else to say :D
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Fat ass, hook me up on TGram, wondering how your project is going :D
 
FatBee said:
Fat ass, hook me up on TGram, wondering how your project is going :D
Click to expand...
Looks like I forgot to install that when I reset my phone lol. Give me a sec :D
 
Aulig said:
Thanks for your interest!
I use Flask for the backend, which is in python. For the frontend I write html & css with bootstrap, just a tiny bit of javascript. I have a basic SQLite Database, which can be implemented with the SQLAlchemy Flask addon. In general theres a ton of flask addons that do a lot of the work for me, e.g. user authentication. As a payment processor ive included stripe and paypal, paypal was a lot more work though. Another service I'm using is mailgun to send emails and improvmx to receive emails and redirect them to my gmail (so i dont need a mail server)

I can't recommend any course to be honest as I didnt do one. I just looked for a basic flask project on github and expanded on that. I like doing it that way because I can use the existing code as a reference for whatever new thing I add on. (Like: "I want to add a new page, lets see how the existing pages are added") I find thats way faster than having to research in the internet. But of course I do plenty of googling when I dont know how to solve a problem Im facing.

Let me know if you have any more questions, because I dont know what else to say :D
Click to expand...
First of all, thanks for the pretty in-depth reply :)

I'm personally, if it comes down to programming languages, bit experienced in Python, though I've never heard (today's the first time I guess) of Flask - so I guess I have to take a look into it. Regarding web development: I'm a complete newbie, so that will probably be the toughest part. Either way, why did you go with a SQLite Database - is SQLite / MySQLi not completely vulnerable to SQLi Injections, thus your Database being hacked? Your SaaS itself is based on Python / Flask as well? (so are you coding upon an API, e.g. you're working on a Snapchat SaaS (that's something where I just don't get it how it's done and I can't find any good explanations): How are you implementing the actual functions from an API / rep into the backend?)

Maybe a bit confusing the way I'm explaining it, so let me know If you don't understand what I mean :)


//EDIT: I got so many open questions, but I don't want to trash your journey thread with lots of technical question so if you want to move the conversation to DM, just tell me! :D
E.g. which IDE do you use - more of a Web-related one like WebStorm or more for Python like PyCharm? How do you connect front-end and back-end?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
AestheticHustler said:
First of all, thanks for the pretty in-depth reply :)

I'm personally, if it comes down to programming languages, bit experienced in Python, though I've never heard (today's the first time I guess) of Flask - so I guess I have to take a look into it. Regarding web development: I'm a complete newbie, so that will probably be the toughest part. Either way, why did you go with a SQLite Database - is SQLite / MySQLi not completely vulnerable to SQLi Injections, thus your Database being hacked? Your SaaS itself is based on Python / Flask as well? (so are you coding upon an API, e.g. you're working on a Snapchat SaaS (that's something where I just don't get it how it's done and I can't find any good explanations): How are you implementing the actual functions from an API / rep into the backend?)

Maybe a bit confusing the way I'm explaining it, so let me know If you don't understand what I mean :)


//EDIT: I got so many open questions, but I don't want to trash your journey thread with lots of technical question so if you want to move the conversation to DM, just tell me! :D
E.g. which IDE do you use - more of a Web-related one like WebStorm or more for Python like PyCharm? How do you connect front-end and back-end?
Click to expand...

Haha feel free to ask any questions here, there's not much other activity here anyways :D

I dont think sqlite is any more vulnerable to sql injections, the whole deal with them is to not execute sql commands that contain unescaped user input (unless im missing something, feel free to ask again). I went with sqlite because it doesn't require any additional setup, like a separate server or anything ;) The product I offer is mostly not on my website, but I do make api calls to my webserver from the product software, which flask can also handle. Later on I'll add a dashboard where users can control some features of the product, but that's not the focus.

However if you want to call the snapchat api then its the other way round, you just have to make an http request to their endpoint, for example with pythons request.post() method.

For the IDE I use PyCharm yea ;) Front end and back end are connected through flask, this is an example code:


@app.route('/faq')
def faq():
return render_template('faq.html')

So when someone opens mywebsite.com/faq this method is called and I can execute any code on the server. With the return statement the server sends the html file to the client.
 
Aulig said:
Haha feel free to ask any questions here, there's not much other activity here anyways :D

I dont think sqlite is any more vulnerable to sql injections, the whole deal with them is to not execute sql commands that contain unescaped user input (unless im missing something, feel free to ask again). I went with sqlite because it doesn't require any additional setup, like a separate server or anything ;) The product I offer is mostly not on my website, but I do make api calls to my webserver from the product software, which flask can also handle. Later on I'll add a dashboard where users can control some features of the product, but that's not the focus.

However if you want to call the snapchat api then its the other way round, you just have to make an http request to their endpoint, for example with pythons request.post() method.

For the IDE I use PyCharm yea ;) Front end and back end are connected through flask, this is an example code:


@app.route('/faq')
def faq():
return render_template('faq.html')

So when someone opens mywebsite.com/faq this method is called and I can execute any code on the server. With the return statement the server sends the html file to the client.
Click to expand...
Thanks a lot for your reply!

A few hours later and I'm pretty fair: I got PyCharm, a project library, an app.py and a template (though some problems as I'm not able to properly integrate it with Flask; but I think that's too programming-specific for a journey thread and we don't want to make the mods mad - so I'll either DM you or lurk around to find a solution to my problem).
Either way, to come back to the Snapchat SaaS example I made: Hypothetically speaking, someone wants to make this SaaS and wants to use any GitHub with a Python API (e.g. https://github.com/mpolden/pysnap) - he builds his app.py and maybe functions.py or whatever his files are called. app.py calls the methods / functions from functions.py and integrates those functionality with the front-end (I could code "bare Python" in functions.py and Python/Flask in the app.py) returning values / output or getting input, right?

To extend my question to SQLite: Do you only store user/mail:pass in the DB or also, e.g. Snapchat API related stuff or shall someone make a different DB for all the API related data received?
 
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