From idea to MVP in 5 days
I had an idea for an activity tracker a few weeks back. I wanted to build an MVP for the idea, but make it as lean as possible and with minimum effort.
Before I talk about how I built the MVP, let me first tell you about the idea.
The idea
There are some activities that I do or want to do consistently.
Some of them are Meditation 🧘♂️, Exercise 🏃♂️ & Getting some sun everyday. 🌞
I wanted a way to be able to create these activities and do a check in as I complete the activity each day.
The other thing, I wanted is to see the streaks of those check ins in a Github style heat map.
I like this chart because it allows me to see how I've done in the past. Also I could probably spot some patterns in how I complete my activities.
From this I could correlate changes in my life from a particular activity.
The idea seemed promising to me. So I sat down to build it.
Before I got down the rabbit hole, I asked my Twitter friends if I should build it or continue working on https://twitter.com/threadweaverapp
Majority of them voted for me to build this idea out. Now that I got the cue, I got down to work.
Building the MVP
This time around I decided to build the MVP using local storage, so that I wouldn't have to worry about DB initially. This also saved me a lot of time.
I was able to get my entire idea working in the landing page itself.
This would help me validate the idea instead of worrying about authentication, databases etc with minimal effort.
Buy a domain?
Next, I did not want to buy a domain for an idea that is not yet validated.
We all know, how we hoard on domains as soon as an idea clicks in our mind, and those domains lie dormant as the spark dies out over a few days.
So I decided to set it up as a subdomain under my personal domain dineshs91.com
Waitlist
Next, the Landing Page has a waitlist.
The waitlist form is powered by NotionForms built by https://twitter.com/JhumanJ
I was able to build this initial MVP in 4 days.
The App
You can check it out here https://streax.dineshs91.com/. Do create some activities and try to do some check ins in and see the heat maps come to life.
Getting initial users to try out the app
I tweeted if any one wanted to give it a try. Few people showed interest.
I DM'ed them the link to the app.
Feedback
Most of them liked the Landing Page and a few especially noticed that I have used local storage.
@code_rams from Twitter pointed out that there is a similar product that exists already and she uses it actively. It is https://lifeofdiscipline.com I checked it out and it's almost similar to what I had in mind for my app.
This is the best thing about Twitter. If I had not shared, then I would have wasted many hours building it when something similar already exists.
I will keep the page alive, but won't be doing any changes to it. I will be using Life Of Discipline for tracking my activities.
Learnings
With this little experiment, I was able to come up with a new way of creating an MVP (using local storage).
My Landing Page design got better. And I saved a lot of time, by putting out the MVP first, before I sit down, spending months building the idea which already existed.
Personally, this was a successful experiment.
The goal of any experiment was to learn. You learn from a failed experiment as same as a successful one.
Here's a quote from Edison on those lines,💡
I DIDN'T FAIL. I JUST FOUND 2,000 WAYS NOT TO MAKE A LIGHTBULB
The goal was to build an MVP with minimum effort and resources as possible.
I achieved them by
- Not using a database and using local storage instead
- Using a subdomain, instead of purchasing a new domain
- Getting feedback from Twitter
Note:
I am not new to development. I've been a web developer for the last 9 years. I've built a few apps before this. So the time it takes for someone to build an MVP might vary.
