Am I prematurely optimizing a system that has no users yet?

This is a question almost everyone who builds products or writes code asks themselves, especially when they're creating something for the first time. So don't worry, asking this question shows you're thinking seriously, which is a good thing.

Let's think about this from a different perspective, and not get too "technical."

Imagine you're not developing a system, but opening a restaurant.

What is premature optimization like?

It's like you've rented a storefront, haven't even decided on the dishes, haven't set the menu, and don't have a single customer yet, but you're already spending a fortune renovating the kitchen. You think future customers will surely be numerous, so you design a kitchen assembly line that can produce 100 dishes per minute. You believe future customers will have very high demands for taste, so you buy an oven that's the same model used in a Michelin three-star kitchen. You even consider the possibility of opening a chain of restaurants later, so you start designing a central kitchen's distribution system right now.

What's the result? You spend three months making the kitchen magnificent and incredibly efficient. Then you launch your first dish: scrambled eggs with tomatoes. You find that absolutely no one comes to eat it. Or, the customers who do come say, "Your scrambled eggs with tomatoes are too salty, I don't like them."

At this point, does your assembly line that can produce 100 dishes per minute have any meaning? Did your Michelin three-star oven play any role? Absolutely not. All the time, effort, and money you spent on "optimizing the kitchen" were wasted. You should have used those resources to visit the market more, cook a few different dishes, invite neighbors and friends to taste them, and see what people actually like.

Back to your system

• Performance optimization: This is your "efficient assembly line." When no one is using it, there's no difference whether your system can serve 1 person or 100,000 people. The optimization you did for those "non-existent" 99,999 people is a wasted effort.
• Architectural optimization: This is your "central kitchen system." When your small restaurant business hasn't even taken shape yet, is it a bit too early to plan the architecture for a chain? Getting the current restaurant right and satisfying the first customer is more important than anything else.

So, when is "optimization" not "premature"?

Let's stick with the restaurant example.

1. Basic user experience is not optimization; it's the passing grade. If your kitchen takes half an hour to cook scrambled eggs with tomatoes, customers will definitely turn around and leave. This isn't "slow"; it's "fundamentally unusable." Applied to your system, if a user clicks a button and it spins for ages, so slow that they think it's crashed, then this isn't a performance issue; it's a bug, a product failure, and it must be fixed. You need to ensure the first user can use it smoothly.
2. Security is not optimization; it's the baseline. You can't say, "I'll lock the restaurant and pay attention to kitchen hygiene once I have more customers." Security issues must be considered from day one.

So, what's the conclusion?

When you have no users, your sole goal is to validate your idea. Your system is merely a tool to figure out, "Does anyone actually need what I'm building?"

You should put 99% of your energy into features that help you find your first user and make their experience enjoyable. Is the code a bit messy? Is the architecture not "high-end" enough? As long as the functionality is stable and the experience is smooth, none of that matters. When you genuinely have 100 or 1,000 users, and they complain, "It's too slow here," or "That feature keeps freezing," that's when you go back and optimize. You'll find yourself highly motivated and with a clear goal, because you'll know exactly whose problem you're solving.

Remember this: Don't obsess over building a perfect kitchen before anyone is paying for your food. First, make a few edible dishes, put them out there, and see if anyone is willing to take a bite – that's what you should be doing right now.