Building a high-speed task tracker that combines task management and documentation is harder than I originally thought
When I started Superthread (https://www.producthunt.com/posts/superthread-0-1-tasks-docs), the aim was to create an integrated alternative to Jira and Confluence that is super-fast.
When it comes to creating a better user interface, I was confident that we could do it and on balance I believe that I was right. This is isn’t to do with the fact that we are amazing product designers but more to do with how poorly Jira and confluence were designed.
When it comes to the speed part, I predicted that this shouldn’t be too difficult given that I was going to use Redis as the database. After all, we built a game as a service that had tens of thousands concurrent players with Golang-Redis based backend.
Full of confidence, I proceeded to build the prototype in Redis and Golang and it worked! Superthread was extremely fast. I achieved the 50 milliseconds response times without even using local first.
As we then started building the product in earnest, we realised that this was not going to scale because injecting data into several pre-created sorted sets would have been problematic in the long term.
Since SQL was not an option due to the inevitability of using Joins which wouldn’t have scaled in the long term, we were on the lookout for a NOSQL solution.
Eventually we went with Dynamo. Because of the nature of NO-SQL which means using queues etc. it took us significantly longer than it would have, had we used SQL. However, this resulted in an extremely scalable backend.
We further augmented everything with local first and optimistic updates which means that Superthread performs the same wether you have 10 or 10million tasks and docs.
Shameless Plug:
After two years of working on the product, we are launching on Product Hunt on 🗓️July 20th so save the date here: https://www.producthunt.com/products/superthread-tasks-docs-together
P.S. to give you an idea of what I am talking about here is a quick walkthrough:
https://youtu.be/cKzL-n7GvNU
Hey! Congrats on the project! It looks amazing. Underestimating software complexity is common. Testing different databases shows your dedication. Keep going, you're rocking it! 💪🚀
Thanks, we switched immediately after the prototype stage which made it manageable.
How is it different than using Notion and setting up a view that looks like the one you have in the pic? (I use Notion in this way - product roadmap with different status categories, document attachments, etc)
Good question:
Makes sense, thanks and good luck on your launch!
Notion is painful after a while.
Congrats on sticking through it for 2 years, overcoming hurdles, and on your impending July 20th launch! Your interface looks slick and I'm super interested in seeing how your product grows. Please keep posting stories on your milestones as they come.
Thanks, Lucas. I will. We currently have a couple of sizeable companies that have aligned everyone into Superthread and we are learning hell of a lot.
This looks awesome. Btw just wondering if possible to have prebuilt tasks/templates for common tasks relevant to particular job roles (marketing/seo/social media) etc.
Yes, you can create a board called Templates, fill it up with cards that can act as templates, favourite the board and then duplicate cards from there into any other space -> board. Meanwhile, we are working on a full-blown templating system so watch this space.
No, I meant prebuilt templates to start with common tasks like one covering the post here - https://www.indiehackers.com/post/dead-simple-marketing-roadmap-for-first-time-founders-501fa7d5a9
or like the ones on https://www.sessionlab.com/templates/ which allows to start with something and then customize as per the need.
I get you, a bunch of templates that ship with the workspace, kind of a template marketplace?
Yes, so we can avoid staring into a blank canvas and better start with something concrete. Not sure if your ICP has that self starting issue but I face this issue whenever I open trello.
When you sign up for www.superthread.com, it comes with 6 spaces which contains template boards/tasks and docs:
You can then change things to fit your organization.
Regarding Trello, you should definitely give Superthread a go.
Awesome. Will definitely signup and check it out. Btw for some more inspiration you can check - https://artifacts.reforge.com/artifacts
Thanks, I have shared it with my team. Do you have any ideas as to what you would personally like to see?
Absolutely! You have the option to create a board titled "Templates" and populate it with cards that can serve as templates. By favoriting this board, you can easily duplicate cards from it into any other space or board you need. Additionally, it's worth noting that we are currently developing a comprehensive templating system, so stay tuned for exciting updates in this area!