Here's what's worked for me and what I wish someone had told me sooner.
Start with Pain, Not Features
One of the easiest traps to fall into is thinking you need to build everything upfront.
You don't.
You need one or two clear, high-pain problems your product solves. That's it. Forget the wishlist, the cool ideas, the "we'll-probably-need-this-later" pile.
Real Example: Shiftwell
For our product, Shiftwell, this was one of the first and most important lessons. My partner and I spent time ideating and designing, but the core came from identifying a real-world issue: small businesses spending hours making schedules manually in Excel.
Sure, there were competitors, but we deliberately focused on small business owners who didn't want the complexity and heavy features of big-name tools. They needed something simple, web-based, that made it easy to assign shifts and catch scheduling errors.
The better we understood their actual pain points, the better we could prioritize and shape our product.
Build Lean, Ship Fast
Speed beats perfection.
You don't need a giant engineering team or custom everything.
Here's a stack we're using to build Shiftwell:
- Frontend: SvelteKit + TypeScript
- Backend: Firebase Firestore
- Boosters: AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor
We ultimately hired a developer to build the foundation of our MVP. And honestly? We thought we had scoped the bare minimum, but after working with the dev, we had to strip it down even more. It turned out to be a blessing: it kept the product clean, lean, and fast to ship.
Get Outside the Building
It's tempting to hunker down and build in a vacuum. Trust me: don't.
For Shiftwell, we leaned hard on user feedback. We didn't ask them for solutions; we asked them about their problems. What was frustrating? Where were they wasting time?
That input helped us stay focused on solving what actually mattered, not just adding features for the sake of it.
Early signal beats late polish every time.
Use AI as Your Co-Pilot
I wish I had this when I started years ago. AI has become a huge leverage point for non-technical founders.
Once we had the foundation of Shiftwell built, we began using tools like Cursor and AI models like Claude and ChatGPT to help us ship additional features. This has massively increased our development speed — allowing us to test, refine, and deliver updates without needing to constantly pull in a developer.
Here's how I personally use AI today:
- Drafting product specs or brainstorming features → ChatGPT
- Generating starter UI flows or diagrams → Claude, Cursor
- Even code snippets → ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor integrations
It doesn't replace you, but it supercharges your process.
Manage Your Energy, Not Just Your Time
This is the hardest one. When you're running lean, it's easy to feel like you have to do everything, all the time.
Here's what I remind myself (and now, you):
- Set small, clear goals. You don't need to boil the ocean every week.
- Track progress simply. Use tools like Confluence or Coda, but don't bury yourself in tools.
- Good enough ships. Perfect waits. Shipping gives you feedback. Waiting gives you anxiety.
You're building something great, but it won't happen overnight.
The Bottom Line
You don't need a massive team. You don't need to know how to code every line.
What you do need is focus, speed, user connection, and smart tools. That's how you keep moving forward without getting overwhelmed.
If this resonated, check out the other resources on Founder Flow or sign up for updates. I'm sharing the real lessons I've learned and the shortcuts that actually work so you can skip some of the early pain.
Let's keep building.