I am trying to build a free app for people who take #100daysofcode challenge? is it worth the time?
I am planning to build a tool for the people who undertake the #100daysofcode challenge, I recently did that myself and found it hard to keep track of my progress, notes, resources, etc.
I was using Notion to do that but setting up Notion in a way that it works for the challenge was time-consuming, so I thought there should be an app for that.
I really like to give it a go, the only market research I did was posting about that in twitter https://twitter.com/ShivEnigma/status/1262759108882526209 and I got very little votes, I am not sure if it is because of my less number of followers, but within my limited impressions, I got mostly positive comments and other said they would use it if there is a tool.
Now I am spending time on building a simple landing page and a mailing list, Earlier I used Wix to validate the idea with people, now that I bought a domain and got a server setup, I am rebuilding the landing page in HTML/CSS.
I have two questions,
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Is it okay to build things that might not pay me back or the business model is not figured out yet? ( I am not looking to make any income out of this particular thing though, if people donate to keep the lights on that would be enough.)
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I am considering this as an exercise for myself to build, market, launch micro products. In that regard, is it okay to fail in succeeding or acquiring users after launch? I am hearing a lot of successful news in the community, but haven't heard anything from people who built and failed or not getting enough traction. So I am little worried about spending time on something that I am not sure will pay off.
Hi Vignesh,
As a #100DaysOfCode participant myself, I might have some direct feedback for you. However, take it with a grain of salt because I'm quite different to some of the other participants (I'm really there to have fun, while it seems that a lot of participants are preparing for their first jobs).
Nonetheless I think your idea has potential, but I'm not 100% sure it would be a great money-spinner though. If, however, you keep it super simple (Something you could set up in a week or two), it might be worth your while to build out an MVP and see if it gets traction.
However, as a learning experience, I think this is a great idea, because the target market is clearly defined and easy to reach.
Best of luck
Thanks for sharing your thoughts @GregFullard, I am not really looking into getting money out of this. This can be an experiment before start building real apps for money and also I take a lot from the community and I felt that I wanted to give something back.
I am aiming for an MVP before July mid because I am working a demanding full time job. Thanks again.
Hey, that's actually not too bad of a response rate! I recently created my first poll on Twitter and got 2 or 3 (with ~70 followers). I also think you've got a great chance with this idea, and you could validate it further easily - just search for the 100daysofcode hashtag, find 5-10 people who are starting, and reply to them with "Hey, I want to build a tracker, would you use it?" (ok, this could be improved a lot, look up a summary of The Mom Test and see how to ask the right questions :) )
Here's my take:
If you want this to make you money, you need to do a lot more. I don't mean features, I mean you need razor focus on the questions: "How does this actually benefit users, and is that benefit actually worth money to them? Do they have the money to spend? Would they prefer to spend that money in other ways?"
But, if you think of business as a long-term venture (for 99% of people, it is), you can think of this as the start of journey, providing value to people. As your base grows and learns, you will be in an excellent position to give them more value. For example, you might be able to sell a course on leveling up as a developer after 100 days. This doesn't sound original, right? But if I tried to sell something like that today, there's nobody who would care about me or why they should spend $100 on a course. But if you offered that, you would have an audience, they've used your software, and they'd want to grow with you.
You're off to a great start, and talking to users was your first big win! If you keep that up, and make sure you're answering the importance/value questions, you'll do very well!
Hi Andrew,
Thanks a ton. Your reply really cleared my thoughts and confusions around it, I am going to do a second validation. After I posted the question, I hacked together a landing page and a email list and put it live on https://whereami.dev/, this will be useful to further validate the idea and to get better feebdack I think. Thanks for your insights, it really means a lot.
Glad to help, and I gotta say you're doing way better than me - you're naturally taking a lot of the right steps!
As you validate, ask them for their e-mail address so you can contact them as you make progress :)
Also try to find out what problems they're facing as they go through 100daysofcode. Maybe you'll find out motivation quotes can get them through rough patches, or maybe you'll find out that logging then immediately posting to twitter is critical. You have some insight from doing it yourself, and they'll help you figure out the rest.
I'd recommend a clear call to action at the top of your page. And if you're pretty good with html/css, https://uselander.xyz might be a good free starter template (later, sorry, I don't mean to distract you from your higher priorities).
And since I really love the mom test, here's my favorite summary of the book:
https://durmonski.com/book-summaries/the-mom-test/
Thanks I'll look into the landing page template, I was looking for inspirations for the landing page improvements actually.
https://whereami.dev/ this is the landing page I deployed after I posted this question.