I'd put the complexity on par with something like Figma or modeling software. There is a complex user interface, and a lot of data complexity. I tried a bare bones approach, but potential customers I spoke with said they want to see a lot more features before they would even consider it. Fair enough, that was my assumption going in because this is an area I've worked in before in a professional capacity (I used to be a software engineer), and fidelity is important.
With that in mind, I made a list of must-have and some good-to-have features based on feedback and discussions.
I've been working on this full time for the past 60 days as of today. I'm maybe 60% done with must-have features, and while building those I found a lot of gaps in my own knowledge so I've been working on figuring things out as well. There are also maybe 20% of the good-to-have features complete.
I'm curious though, is this normal? I spent maybe 20% of the time trying to find folks to join me but after interviewing them I didn't feel comfortable bringing them on.
I read this article https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/119122450/in-bb-it-normally-takes-two-years-to-start-feeling-product-market-fit
And it seems for some of these companies similar in complexity to mine (obv. not 1:1) it took years to have a live product, let alone the first customer.
At my current velocity, I think it will take me another 60 days to have a live product to start doing sales/onboarding for pilot customers.
The worst part is half the time I feel like an idiot for doing this, but at the same time I have this burning desire to keep pushing and conquer.