10 tips to accelerate your web start-up

Here’s a quick list I came up with that should help you speed up development.

Do you really need to create another “users” database or can you just use some other service’s vast db of friend-to-friend connections. Think facebook connect.
Do you even need to have your users login to you use your services. Why can’t it be anonymous.
This is no brainer. Use frameworks! Such as CodeIgniter for Php, Django for Python, Rails for Ruby, jQuery for Javascript… If you want to develop an app quickly and you’re idea is not so crazy that it can’t use a framework, why would you roll your own.
Relating to number 3, make sure you learn your tools well, because you might end up coding something up that has already been done, and that would be a waste of your time and money.
Use a css framework, for example Blueprint, to help you quickly create a grid based layout and try to use they’re classes as often as possible, while trying to avoid creating you’re own, as much as possible. Sure this limits you in certain things you can do, but it sure will keep it simple.
Take some time and see if anyone else has already developed what you’re thinking of rolling on your own. The amount of the you search until you find your solution, will be much less then actually creating it, maintaining it, debugging it, testing it and so on. Reuse code.
Don’t try to boil the ocean. If you’re idea involves solving multiple problems then be careful. The saying: jack of all trades, master of none wasn’t said for no reason. Do one thing and do it so well that people will beg you to use your site.
You really don’t need to have a blog for your startup in the beginning. Set one up after you finish your product.
Your startup idea can maybe be morphed a little to use another very successful site’s API. Then the people that are using that service might very well like what you’re building. For example, building an app on top of Twitter or Flickr.
Avoid creating complex relational database schemes when a less normalized version could do the trick. Or try out one of these newfangled schema-less free DB solutions: couchDB or TokyoCabinet