How I created a technology launch in 2 years from scratch as a creative student – Wired PR Lifestyle Story

As we enter the new year of 2022, I thought about documenting my career to build a vibrant and competitive technology startup in Singapore.

My name is Gabriel Sze, and I am a 4th year student at Nanyang University of Technology (NTU) enrolled in the Renaissance Engineering Program. I am also a student creator Diving offers, a platform for finding mobile-optimized web-based deals to bridge the path of online and offline consumers.

The career of an entrepreneurial student is really difficult. It can be a daunting task to create a business and build a solution for tens of thousands of users.

Limited experience in software product development, industry experience, and a small network are some of the first struggles I faced.

However, as a student, I feel challenged to grow beyond my limits and take advantage of these opportunities to grow both hard and soft skills. More importantly, this journey has allowed me to build meaning and purpose in my product.

In this article, I want to share some personal and take-away experiences in building a new technology startup.

1. Find a point of reasonable pain

First, I found something that was reasonable to build on my own. One of my biggest challenges in navigating this space was finding the latest technology to apply, finding the most talented team, or finding the “perfect idea”.

While it is important to be ambitious, it is essential to identify a problem first and be able to start resolving the problem as soon as possible.

In fact, starting a startup was not my first intention. It was a problem to solve.

Understanding the limitations of my position as a creative student, I began with one of the greatest expressions of personal problems I had and tried to build a better product for myself and the people around me who shared similar thoughts.

One of the biggest pains in my life was saving money by finding good deals and promotions in Singapore. This has always been a big problem for me because I didn’t like installing too many mobile apps on my phone and I preferred to search the net.

I came across many dealer-aggregator sites that had poor user interface and experience, and it was often difficult for me to find all the information because there were too many sites and social media channels to follow and find the most important offers.

The information was very unstructured, which was a big struggle to find important and accurate details about the ongoing offerings and promotions. After all, a lot of people weren’t mobile-friendly, which was also a problem for the one who was always on the go.

Since I was enrolled in computer science, I think it is reasonable to develop a better website and interface. As a student, I think we should be able to find a reasonable solution to any problems we may have to deal with, or perhaps to involve some friends.

2. Validate the pain point

Idea may be the most exciting part, but validation is the most practical step for any solution.

While a solution can help you and many others, the perfect scenario is to build something that benefits a large number of people.

In addition to close relatives and friends, I approached many relatives, classmates, and other friends to share my statement of concern with them and to hear their thoughts on our platform. It is wise to ask honest and objective neutral questions!

After hearing about my experiences traveling to find deals in Singapore, I heard similar and new frustrations when moving around many sites, poor user experience, lack of interest in downloading additional apps.

Key representations and lack of reliable data were also highlighted. Hidden criteria, terms and conditions and finding applicable outlets were some of the issues raised.

It’s important to be humble so that your point of pain may not be shared with others and be willing to repeat the problem statement again, this time with more information.

3. Build and repeat the solution

Building and repeating is an important process. Based on the feedback I received, I started designing the website and then developed it from scratch.

Get ready to spend many hours learning and repeating. I had almost no prior knowledge of web development, so I had to start from scratch.

I initially spent many months learning the basics of building a scalable, personalized website, investing almost 10 to 12 hours a day in language, learning new frameworks, and finding resources online.

I did this during my second year of college during one of my summer breaks, so sacrifices have to be made. I took a break from practice at this point as well.

It’s important to learn the basics well, but not spend too much time building an idealistic product. Some good practices are good to put aside at this point; gap but good work must be the benchmark.

Eventually, the building became more comfortable and popular. Many months later, I developed a Website for optimizing mobile deals which fixed the validated pains around me and around me.

This platform focuses on the user experience, creating simple data sheets to highlight key data and highlighting important locations on a custom network map. He also teased the web-like approach to mobile applications (what we call web applications).

From now on, you need to be prepared for many, many repetitions.

It takes time for the product to grow

Time will fly if you really enjoy building your product.

As we launched the product and repeated it along the way, our user base gradually grew, and we received great feedback on the product. This added to my enthusiasm for promoting the platform by growing our web application to better meet the needs of users and businesses.

It’s also important to have passion and sense in what you build.

In this pandemic, we were able to connect with many businesses to help increase their awareness and reach. We often contact local and neighborhood brands to offer attractive promotions on our website.

I still hope to grow this platform, but it’s fun and exciting to develop a product that people really use and that helps in these difficult times.

It will continue to be exciting for Dive Deals this year, but my decision is that we continue to make an impact and create more value for our stakeholders.

Featured Image Credit: Gabriel Sze / Dive Deals