What does version one look like when you're building it at night around a day job?

Priya Natarajan· Building a scheduling app for independent physical therapists; still at my product day job· Named it, SaaS & Software·1w

I'm building a scheduling tool for independent physical therapists, the solo practice people currently running their week out of a paper diary and a phone. I have the name, the domain, and about six months of evenings.

The problem is scope. Every time I talk to a PT they mention something reasonable. Insurance claim notes. Intake forms. Reminder texts. A waitlist. Each one is a week of evenings, and I've got roughly ten good hours a week after my actual job and a toddler. At my current rate version one ships next winter, which isn't a plan, it's a hobby.

I know the advice is to cut until it hurts. What I can't work out is which thing is the one thing. Scheduling without reminders seems pointless to the people I've shown it to. Scheduling without intake forms is apparently fine. That's one data point from four conversations.

So: when you shipped your first version, what did you leave out that you were certain you couldn't leave out? And did anyone actually pay for the stripped down thing, or did they wait for the rest?

I'd rather ship something embarrassing in eight weeks than something respectable next year.

4 replies

Ken Washington· Registered·1w

Same shape of problem over here with dispatch software, so here's what I did. I stopped asking what they wanted and started asking what they do on Monday morning. Four pilots later, the answer was that the pain wasn't scheduling at all, it was the twenty minutes of phone tag before anything got scheduled.

Your reminder texts point is probably the same thing. Nobody wants scheduling, they want to stop chasing. If reminders are what removes the chasing, that's the product and the calendar is the supporting cast.

I shipped with no reporting, no mobile app, and nothing resembling billing. Not one pilot has asked about reporting since.

Priya Natarajan· Named it·1w

The Monday morning question is going straight in my notes. I asked four people this week what the last thing was that made them want to throw the phone, and three said a patient who didn't show and didn't call. So it's reminders and a no show policy, and the calendar exists so the reminders have something to point at. That's a much smaller build than the one I've been carrying around.

Carla Vasquez· Open·6d

Ten hours a week is plenty if none of it goes on things a library already does. I once spent two months of evenings building a booking calendar with timezone handling, and it's the stupidest thing I've ever done with my own time.

The other thing I'd push back on: shipping embarrassing is fine for a photo app, less fine when someone's appointments live in it. Embarrassing to look at, yes. Losing an appointment, no. Pick the two things that must never break and be extremely boring about those.

Ravi Sharma· Registered·6d

Adjacent world here, I do managed IT for dental offices, and the thing I'd flag early is that the moment you touch patient names and appointment times you're in a conversation about health information that small practices will ask you about. This isn't me adding a feature, it's the opposite. The dentists asked me about it before they asked about price.

Have a short honest answer ready about where the data lives and who can see it, even if the answer is that you're early. The ones who care will ask on the first call, and that's a bad moment to be improvising.

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