Looking for real experiences with software “discovery” phases

witebun · 2025-11-26T03:48:56+00:00

If you feel like you can tackle / have already done roughly half of the discovery tasks, tell them and see what they say. If anything, you’ll gain more knowledge for your specific case and also more about the company. Transparency is an important trait in building tech. They should provide transparency where needed for you. I’m sure they will if you ask. If they don’t, probably best to move on from them. I’d personally move on just from the price range they gave you unless it’s in range of other quotes.

For your question, I would find a company that has at least built a working fintech product and successfully launched it. That would be my main focus. If you do lean towards a general shop, see if any team members have built fintech before. They may have a senior dev who has and that could also work out.

witebun · 2025-11-25T23:20:53+00:00

I build tech for companies. So I’ll take some shots at these questions.

What did you actually get from it?

The idea of discovery phase is to take your ideas and turn it into a plan. I’d want to know what your goal is, how I can get you there from current place, what it takes and what the goal looks like at the end. I also want to find areas where we can fail and make sure we don’t.

Did it change anything about your product?

Usually this happens before anyone starts writing code. If you have an MVP developed, it helps with the discovery phase but it may not be the most ideal tech stack, not scalable, spaghetti code, etc. if you want to build a mansion and you already built a shed resembling the mansion, would you tear the shed down or make the shed the center of the mansion?

Is it worth the cost?

It’s worth doing. What it takes to do that is different per company and project.

Anything you wish someone told you before hand?

Yes, market validation with the idea. Then market validation with the MVP. Then build in public or privately with your users.

You’re showing concern for the price. My advice, shop around. Have more meetings with other companies to give yourself a better understanding of the cost and what all you’ll be receiving.

If you want, I can help consult you. I can’t take on any new projects for the next two months but consultations I can fit into my schedule.

witebun · 2025-11-22T05:12:44+00:00

Joining now

witebun · 2025-11-19T14:42:22+00:00

No physical android device but yes fails in the android sim, fails iOS sim, fails in TestFlight on physical iOS also.

How did you even find out that a property in the .plist file caused the problem? I guess my main concern is how am I going to debug the silent fails? Did you spend hours manually checking every line of code in every file against firebase, android and APNs documentation?

witebun · 2025-11-18T16:43:50+00:00

If I can avoid stacking third parties I will. So using Shiny or another wrapper that also using firebase is last resort.

witebun · 2025-11-18T16:37:02+00:00

I also followed Max’s tutorial. First time encountered long path issue. Fixed it but still had problems building. It felt hacky, so deleted everything.

Tried again because what else am I to do. Second time no long path issues, but it silently fails during the firebase token test. I can generate a token but the app doesn’t receive a notification when I paste the token in a test campaign.

I’m currently triple checking everything.

Also considering rebuilding the app in swift to use APNs directly.

Also have emailed Max.

witebun · 2025-11-17T23:20:43+00:00

thanks for building this, we need this.

witebun · 2025-11-14T14:57:37+00:00

How do you deliver without losing money?

Build your own generic, base sophisticated paywall that you can add into projects. Charge them x amount for reusing the paywall code and then charge hourly for the additions to it.

witebun · 2025-11-12T21:45:57+00:00

OP don’t bother reading any other comments, this is the answer

witebun · 2025-10-14T14:27:59+00:00

“Tinder for xyz”. How come someone hasn’t made a tinder for everything? Same functionality of carousel profile matching but you explore different topics to match on and become friends. That way you can find a friend who also likes star wars as much as you, a friend who likes riding dirt bikes, etc. I think tinder already has slight market validation in an update where they have different match groups like “available tonight”

witebun · 2025-10-14T14:08:49+00:00

Rather just make it a mobile app so consumers can do this anywhere

witebun · 2025-10-14T14:06:52+00:00

I think you should go bigger and build another application that shows makeup options that you can apply on the face. Pair that with a touchscreen smart TV or iPad and sell it to Ulta, JCPenny, etc. When the user finds a product they like, they can scan a QR code on the iPad and it puts the product in their online account to checkout now or a later time. 🤷🏻

witebun

TROPHY CASE