I have an idea for a social media site that works like twitter and an imageboard, where users can tag every post and the site tracks what tags each user likes. It would then match users with similar tastes so they can follow each other.
Before attempting to build something like this, I'm wondering:
- Would this be a reasonable project for an average hobbyist programmer to take on solo?
- Roughly how long would it take to create an MVP?
I think it sounds like an excellent "deep dive" project, but don't get your hopes up that a million people will use it. Ultimately I believe this will be a test of your statistics and math skills more than anything,
I think you could probably reasonably complete the application itself in 1-3 months, but I have no idea how long it would take to complete the matching/recommendation algorithm.
… an average hobbyist programmer …
and
… create an MVP?
are at odds in my opinion. Are you looking for a hobby project or are you trying to build a product that you can sell/persuade investors with?
If you are interested in building such a thing because you care about the idea, go for it! Even if you abandon the whole thing after a few months of consistent work, I'm pretty confident that you will gain something in the process (insights, learnings, an idea for an actual product etc.).
However if your goal is to build something that's commercially viable, I would do some market analysis (see what's out there, what you want to do differently) and maybe talk to people who have already launched products or started companies before, instead of basing my decision on the responses from strangers on social media.
