If I ignore the inevitable restarts, I have been working on the minimum viable product (MVP) of Dlayer for a little over three years; it is astonishing how quickly time passes when you have a career and family.
I’ve been working on Dlayer demo, a responsive web development tool, one way or another, for almost a decade. In that period I got married, we have a three-year-old son and have moved half way across the country (small country).
I had an idea for a product, and I plan to realise it.
To say it has been tough would be a massive understatement. Realising Dlayer has been challenging, finding the time and money to work on my projects isn’t simple, it is about balance, you need to ensure you have enough cash flow to ensure your family is safe and comfortable, but on the other hand, you need the time to develop your projects.
I always planned on Dlayer being a private commercial product, 18 months ago I changed direction. After years of solo development and countless more ahead of me, I came to the conclusion that it is not possible to do this alone, I need help, but more importantly, I needed to relieve any stress from attempting to singlehandedly design, build and finance a complex product.
It took 18 months to prepare Dlayer for the official v1.00 Open Source beta release, but I got there, at the tail end of last year I released the first version.
Dlayer isn’t ready for prime time yet; there is still much to do, progress is consistent, and I’m getting my house in order so that the first contributors have a great experience.
As soon as you Open Source a product and realise that the eyes of other developers could be looking at your code you wake up, the quality goes up, standards you aim to adhere to get met and working practices in general improved, thank you.