Working on a product while doing a full-time job
People usually say one should pursue their passion and keep a laser-focused single goal. For me, this was difficult since I love my career as an HR specialist, and at the same time passionate about building GoCurry, a platform for curry lovers to explore the diversity of curry cuisine while connecting with like-minded people. Also, I wish to get a stable stream of income while I work on GoCurry’s business viability.
A big thanks to my company Mercari, which encourages the members to pursue side jobs/projects while working full-time, as well as promotes flexible working. I got inspiration from a lot of Mercari members, who wrote their books, did external consulting, or even started their business while working full-time. I truly believe any company should allow their full-time members to work on side-projects and this will be a true win-win for both sides.
For people like me who like to take a balanced approach, I will give 5 tips to help you work on your product while working full-time in your company.
0. Do not start if you don’t have the passion for the idea: Just want to build something because you think it's a money minting idea? Sure, go for it but remember to do thorough research until you truly have the passion to drive it. Working on a product is not a one-time sprint- it requires continuous improvements through several iterations upon taking regular feedback from your users. This can be really daunting while working on your full-time job. Personally for GoCurry, being a curry lover, I was passionate to build a curry platform and solve the issues like-minded people faced. It has been almost 1.5 years since we started with our product journey and though it has been a bit slow, we are still going strong.
- Together with a team: There might be people who are super-disciplined and all-rounders to drive a product by themselves while working full-time, but if you are an average like me, I will definitely recommend you to find a team that is passionate to work on the product and complement each others’ skills and values. The team members not only support product development & management but also act as accountability partners to keep you on track when you feel overwhelmed by your full-time job. At GoCurry, we are a team of 5 with 3 engineering members working on different technology stacks and 2 business-side members for marketing and business development.
2. Weekly meetings and 1on1s: No agenda, no progress? No problem — try not to skip weekly meetings in your team, even if it means only sharing members’ personal matters and plans for the next sprint. Weekly meetings give that much-needed team time and help in regaining sight of the project goals. 1on1s are a great way to connect with the other members at a personal level and understand their concerns if any. We are continuing our weekly meetings at GoCurry for almost a year now while I started monthly 1on1s with the team members for the last 6 months.
3. Releasing features and getting continuous user feedback: The feature is small or the feature is not perfect yet? Releasing a feature fast gives a sense of accomplishment to the team and keeps the team motivated to move forward with new user stories. Same time, getting users’ feedback on the features continuously adds an extra layer of accountability to deliver timely to the users. At GoCurry, the last feature we released on the mobile app was the “Map View” that came up in a lot of user feedback we received in the past. Also, in the past, we released the “GoCurry News” feature on the app which we thought was not perfect but got all positive feedback from the users.
4. Celebrate small wins: Released a feature or survived another month, celebrating small wins with the team is much recommended to get refreshed from the workload. GoCurry team does monthly offline meetings combined with a fun activity, subject to the covid situation. The last one was a bowling competition in Shibuya!
5. Networking, blogging & pitching: Spread the word about your product and vision as much as possible. There is much less possibility that someone will copy your idea than giving genuine feedback or connecting further with a relevant person. A few months back I went to a cafe near my home, and as the barista was dripping the coffee, they asked me what I do. I told them that I am building this app GoCurry that helps one search curry places according to their preference. They immediately installed the app. Now when I go to the cafe or even pass through, the barista shows me the restaurants they visited thanks to GoCurry, and just by a small talk, I got a loyal customer. Recently, we also started to pitch GoCurry at pitching events and got constructive feedback for our pitch at the Shibuya Startup X ProductHunt online event.
So these were the 5 tips to continue working on a product while doing a full-time job. All members of GoCurry are working on it along with their full-time job and are quite committed to making it big. We are looking for advisors and product managers to help us steer the product further while guiding us through the business journey. If you are interested in the idea or just curious to know more, ping me a message anytime on LinkedIn.
Do check out GoCurry app and SNS!
Website/app: https://gocurry.page.link/home
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If you are a curry restaurant in Japan and want to list on GoCurry: https://forms.gle/nN11yb5kLkcmAeb9A
For any Questions & feedback- please email: gocurry.jp@gmail.com