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I have been working on an education services startup for about 1 Year. At this stage the whole product must be completed, but I still have ~30% remaining.

Following is my case:
We are a group of 4 for this project. 2 of us from a technical background with good market skill, 1 from graphics/animation, 1 is a good follower.

We are making a

  1. Graphical education content
  2. LMS (Learning management system)
  3. Statistical analytic system
  4. Portal solution.

I have an IT background so I have made from 2 to 4 above mentioned product my own, which took 8 months to complete. But the first Graphical work is incomplete. Graphics is the task which consumes the most time and finance. Outsourcing it is unaffordable for us.

We have met many educational institute with our concept, they like the concept and want to test our product and see how it helps them better performance. But with incomplete concept how can we deploy our product there?

This state is very stressful. 2 of our friends have left the concept. I want suggestions on how can I complete the graphical task as soon as possible.

How should I maintain my motivation level? I am disconnected from market for last 3 month, how could I regain my market confidence? Should I join part-time job until this phrase passes out?

I still have desire to make it come true, but don't have knowledge how to fight against mentioned situation.

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You need a working product. Define product and make a prototype. – Andrew Smith Jul 20 '12 at 11:55
@Andrew Smith: Sorry for the late reply, product prototype is ready, and met the client with the prototype, they have the question about if I could deliver the full product. They require the full product, but I am lack of finance to complete the Graphical product. Should I meet the investors, but would they believe on a freshers startup? What`s your vision on this? – Darshan Joshi Sep 19 '12 at 4:45
You need a fully functional product. but you dont need everything. For example, if this is teaching english, you need to show, how powerful is your product with questions (and one set of questions), videos (one video), speech (one speech) etc. While the rest can be made later. You need it this way, to present your concept that the product is seriously well designed the way it works, but actually scaling it up requires investment. The best is if that would truly show, that one can get educated in nice way on single subject in full (e.g. with exams). – Andrew Smith Sep 20 '12 at 15:37

2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

Being a programmer myself, and eventually going to have similar problems, I always thought about outsourcing design/graphics.

There are so many hungry design & graphics students out there (you can pay them fairly once you have money) and also, there is so much talent at http://www.12designer.com/ .. for rates that make you feel.. well.. let me just say that it is rather cheap.

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up vote 2 down vote

You should do whatever is necessary to get the product in the hands of your customers as soon as possible. It doesn't need to be perfect, it doesn't need to be all bells and whistles, it doesn't need to look perfect - it needs to deliver some core value and it needs to work.

From there iterate the product against feedback received from customers, preferably paying ones.

Read "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries, and/or "The Startup OWners Manual" by Steve Blank.

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Your answers has covered many of problems. – Darshan Joshi Jul 20 '12 at 10:06

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