Utility vs Complexity

Should I build an app that focuses on utility even though it is not technically complex? 

For context, I have been thinking about a small problem that 400 000 students face in Niger. The question of choosing your field of study after high school. We have a big issue when it comes to information. It is pretty hard to have an aggregated database of majors available, the best universities to study them, the average salaries after graduation, and the typical companies that hire from these.

 This is not a very hard problem to solve. In fact the hardest part of this problem would be to find all this information. Building the platform itself is  not that technically challenging, unless you wanted to make so. 

Now as a student, there is pride in bragging about how complex your solutions are to build. But here I find myself thinking about that very issue. Should I, in my journey, prioritize complexity or utility? 

Complexity would help me learn more, and I can be pretty proud of my fits. I would have bragging rights in conversations, etc. But to be honest, I have never been much of a fan of this.

So maybe I should build for impact. I will not have the time or the energy to build such projects in a few years. 

After writing the first lines of this post, I launched a waitlist to see how people would react to the idea and if we’d have people willing to try it and give feedback. In less than 12 hours we received 220 people registered for the waitlist and that is through whatsApp sharing alone. 

It does look like this is something a lot of students will benefit from. So I am building it. 

Let’s see how it turns out.