Unless your previous experience was as the first engineer at a startup, your previous experience was probably preparing you to iterate on an existing product (late phases of phase 1 or phase 2), or a new product for existing customers. You had a base level of expectations. Previously, you were forced to released a polished version, but you had the resources to do it. In your new capacity, you (probably) don't have that. There's something to be said for just throwing out there a minimum version of the product, and polishing it later. You'll save weeks of wasted effort probably.
Actually the app is online since 1 month. It was necessary to integrate with AWS, test everything in prod and let people play with the product. I deploy new commits every day.
When I said "I'm polishing for the release", I was referring to:
- make a minimal website to present the product (right now I don't even have a white page but a "Could not resolve host")
- finish to integrate the payment system
- fix some bugs I don't want to have for the public release
1) Using all the knowledges and skills I developed during 5 years as an employee to finally build my own SaaS is a very great feeling.
2) Building a one man SaaS forces you to leave your comfort zone. I've learned new languages/frameworks. I've learned about security and infrastructure (I use a dozen of AWS services, I've never touched AWS before that). I've written a CLI to deploy my front-end on S3. I've learned how to integrate a billing system. I've learned to study my market and my competitors, to make a roadmap and prioritize the tasks, to find a good domain name, to find my first beta testers. I've learned how to create a legal entity in France and get some financial helps. I've never learned as much as in the last 5 months.
3) Being able to work when, where and how you want is an amazing thing. Not having to debate during long meetings and convince all your colleagues about every business, UX, technical or design choices feels so much more productive. Having to make all the tough decisions alone teaches you a lot.
Even if my SaaS doesn't become successful, I will regret nothing, it's the best experience in my career.