I built a WhatsApp chat analyzer just for fun — and it turned into a real product

Hey Indie Hackers 👋

I didn’t start this project with a big vision or a market thesis. I just wanted something fun to build.

I was looking for a side project that felt playful, had real data, and could give instant, interesting results. WhatsApp chats felt like the perfect fit — everyone has them, they’re messy, and they hide a lot of patterns you never really think about.

So I built Convolens, a WhatsApp chat analyzer that shows things like who texts more, who starts conversations most, activity over time, and general communication patterns. No deep psychology or serious analytics — just clear, fun insights from chats you already have.

What surprised me was how people reacted when I shared it with friends. It started as “this is cool”, then turned into “wait… this actually says a lot”. That’s when I realized it might be worth polishing and releasing instead of leaving it as another half-finished side project.

From a dev perspective, this was all about:

• working with real-world messy data

• keeping the UX simple

• making something that feels fast and satisfying to use

I’m still early and mostly just enjoying the process, but I’d love feedback from builders:

• would you build something like this just for fun?

• what would you add or remove?

• how would you think about pricing something lightweight like this?

Happy to answer any questions about the build. Mostly just excited to finally ship something and see where it goes 🙈