[rattray]

First, don't stress. This is normal. I've had a number of projects, including my current one, that has had early people come and go. A startup is a monumental commitment and it's a good thing your partner realized their heart wasn't in it before things got more serious (ie; product launch).

As for where to go from here, it depends a lot on the state of the current project IMO. If it's possible to get something out the door with the backend as it is now, I'd say do that. Call it an MVP, and see how it goes. If it turns out you're on to something, you can start looking for others to join you and use your traction as an argument. If it just absolutely doesn't work as-is, and you really believe in this, you should probably do what it takes to get an MVP out the door. That might be picking up the backend where he left it yourself, or hiring some freelance help if that's something you're more comfortable with -- be careful if you're new to this.

Best of luck!

[jhacks]

Thanks for the reply. My gut was telling me to do the same. It can't be launched as-is, but I'd say the backend is 80% there. However, the last 20% is quite important. But I think it should be something I could put together. The issue isn't so much what's not done but the fact that I don't know Ruby, Rails, or backend development at all really. Then there is the linking of the backend and frontend with AJAX. Which although I have yet to do it... I've become familiarish with it. And then pulling things from local environment to the server. Again, never done it... but I'm sure I can learn.

It's going to be hard, but I feel going solo for now might just be the more realistic option. I don't want the headache of hiring developer(s)... nor do I think it'd be safe to risk finding a strange co-founder at this stage.

Well, going to be a tough couple of months ahead of me! That's for sure.

[rattray]

A tough and probably incredibly worthwhile and rewarding few months! Stick with it, there isn't anything that some creative googling and enough console.log()'s can't get you through. By the way, if you're new to development, you might check out a guide I recently wrote on learning to code/hack[1], though it sounds like you're already well on your way.

[1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZYvik8gFPK_HTYEoqJNwHw_2...