A guide to organizing work and teams in an IT startup?

Question

Startups

I propose to create a cool discussion of the issue that people who are in the early stages of developing an idea, planning budgets and building a team for their IT startup (mobile application, service, platform) can refer to. Of course, it is better to work with examples. If you have a dozen free minutes and are ready to give a detailed answer, which, I hope, can potentially help dozens of young (and not so) people, launch their IT idea as efficiently as possible and avoid stupid mistakes at first, I will be very grateful to you . Thank you very much in advance.
(aka. Let's help Eugene (that's me) figure out how best to proceed and what to do next?)
Scenario :
Eugene raised $50,000 and is ready to invest it in creating a super-duper-mega application in the style of next-Uber/AirBnb (we will omit advice on the topic: invest in yourself or invest in assets). Evgeny has experience in running a business, managing small teams (not IT), and, in general, he cooks his firebrand well. He has no technical background, of course. He does not want to share a share of his business and will not - this means that investments come only from his own pocket ($ 50k) & he will not take anyone into the share of developers and directors either.
What is the essence of the application. Let's say this is some kind of new task manager (now it came to mind, because I always use them myself). And this task manager will perform all the functions that I do everything (setting tasks, hierarchies from projects and tasks in projects, tags, etc., but, for example, it will also be able to track your habits (habit tracker), will give you recommendations on what to do based on your current location (GPS), and even if it will be a time tracker (like toggl, for example) - this is such functionality.The application is strictly on US and B2C.
Eugene is an ambitious guy, so he wants to create some kind of platform out of this, on which they will add various functionality that will be related to the subject of the application and will bring even more benefits to users (that is, this application, its mvp face, on top of which functionality will be added in subsequent years company life). This means that the application must scale well.
Such a platform can be implemented on: IOS, Android (native), Web-App, MAC & Windows apps. This does not mean that you need to develop everything at once (obviously). This means that our goal is to launch this platform on the devices and systems described above. I think we've dealt with that.
“Since this is more of a "technical question" aimed at clarifying points in this area, we will not touch on the business part. This means that we skip the phases of idea validation, development of marketing campaigns, creation of brand awareness, legal aspects, etc. Burem that all these questions are already closed for us. Budget - $50,000 doesn't account for all of that. That is, marketing and all costs will be considered from above (here we do not take them into account). One more explanation. All work will be done remotely. (Aka. Let's imagine that Eugene went to live in Africa - he, of course, has the Internet). »
Questions :
What should Eugene do next? In my opinion, he 1. - needs to improve his skills in technical terms (so that he at least understands what to talk about, even with the same technical directors); 2. - start to form a team. And here the main question emerges: freelance (I think only design can be worked out here), outsource or staff? It was not in vain that I wrote an example application - so that we all would have at least some idea of ​​the work that should be done at the stage of preparing mvp and, subsequently, developing additional functionality and entering other platforms.
What devices should you target first? My opinion is to first do IOS (because without a mobile application, the web cannot exist (in our case). Then, after MVP - Android, then Web-app, then MAC & Windows.
From what I see on the team (based on Evgeny's budgets for the start of mvp and his experience) - these are:
• IOS Developer (1-2 - I don't know - I think that full-time, but it's not clear whether they will have there will be enough work later, after the launch (most likely there will be work, since we plan to expand everything, but will there be enough budgets for this ... We take that Evgeny does not have more than $ 50,000 - further salaries will go from the earnings of the application itself (exaggerated, but let so))
• UI / UX Designer (most likely to find a good freelancer)
• BackEnd (I don't know if I need it or not. If yes, then most likely 1 - I think it's part-time)
• Front-End (in my opinion, when it comes to is about mobile development, iOS developer closes this position.But, most likely, I'm wrong).
• QA specialist (1 person - I think for part time or as project work. But these are just assumptions, since I don't know what he can do during the development of the application itself).
* Project Manager - will organize developers (most likely part time, but, most likely, with such a budget it is unlikely to succeed, perhaps he will be replaced by Team Lead / CTO, or Eugene himself, if he improves his technical skills (hardly)
• Team Lead / CTO (1 person. Since we decided that there would be no one in Evgeny’s share, then either full time or part time. Such specialists, as I understand it, honor about $ 2-3 per month (if you’re lucky). Therefore, it’s possible so that it closes part of the development or something else, since the budgets are not large for this kind of task).
• AI / ML specialist (it's so simple, by the way. If the application analyzes the user's location and makes some recommendations based on this, then this is probably part of machine learning. Although, I already guess that this is unlikely to fit into the previous established budgets)
Well, something like this. And now you need to decide how, whom, when (at the beginning of the project, in the process or at the end of mvp) and what to take (freelance, part-time, full-time). In terms of timing, from my "Mega experience" I can assume that this kind of application and with such budgets will take 5-6 months - from the start of design and layout development, to release on the App-Store.
PSLet's get constructive. “Make more money and hire a better team”, “Not enough budget”, “Bad idea”, etc. we omit the statements. We are obliged to meet the budget and ALWAYS make a quality product, and not some kind of ass. Either we remove the functionality, cut the team, or do something else... But we need to release the MVP.
I may have said a lot of bullshit in certain parts of my question that may not be true (especially those parts), so please correct me if you can. Thank you very much
Also, any additional materials - texts, videos, courses and tips are very welcome. Even from couch analysts and mother's startups. We will collect as many opinions as possible.

Answer 1

: "Buddy, you don't have those. back, so give another chela the wheel and he will lead you to success. Needless to say, this is, to put it mildly, "a very bad answer."

Look, Eugene.
For a startup, you must have a business plan. Namely - to whom to sell the product, who is ready to buy it and for what money. And your agenda is simply "how to write a product."
A startup is not at all about what you wrote here. For a startup, you should be the chief technical officer, not just a sponsor with an ill-conceived idea. That is, the very essence of the question - "startup" you miss.
You came up with a product concept. You already have an approximate TOR. That is, the task remained simple - just write a product.
If you don’t understand people and you can’t even hire a technical architect whom you are ready to trust that he will meet the specified budget and write a product according to the TOR - well, go to the office, conclude an agreement, they write to you
If there is no TK, then before allocating 50,000, you hire a consultant who helps you write TK and evaluate (you can immediately go to the office, which will also undertake to write it later).
But will this project be profitable? Can you sell it - that's the main question. Because there are a lot of good programmers who can quickly accumulate 50k, but there are few startups of this kind. Precisely because who needs it is a question from the field of sales and market knowledge.

Answer 2

There is no correct way to do this. And in any case, one person is not capable of this, which means that a team is needed. And with any of the options you can succeed. Also, don't duplicate your question. Everything was written to you in the past

Answer 3

1) we need permanent staff, preferably in the office, remotely - I don’t know how lucky it should be to pick up more or less immediately, and not at least six months in advance
2) a deadline novel about project management and rework, but these are also stories from one person
3) and the one who is called CTO, here you can save money if at part time and he has a constant, but you should also be lucky with the choice of the right one