My PH launch flopped today (#280). So I’m sharing the React boilerplate I built to survive my exams instead.
Today was supposed to be the big day. 😅
For the last few months, I’ve been coding from my hostel room, trying to balance building a product with the absolute grind of Class 11 PCM (Physics, Chemistry, Math) and SAT prep.
Studying was becoming impossible. I was constantly losing my flow state by context-switching between separate Pomodoro timers, task lists, and YouTube lecture tabs (which always led to algorithm rabbit holes). I needed a single, unified workspace to survive my exams.
So, instead of studying, I spent weeks coding Focus Mode.
🔗 Live Demo: https://www.focusmode.online/
The Technical Struggle I built it in React. The absolute hardest part was the UI—specifically, getting a custom drag-and-drop canvas to feel buttery smooth without causing lag or breaking the custom Pomodoro timer’s state management.
There were nights I wanted to throw my laptop out the window because a dragged component would randomly reset the timer state. But I finally got it working flawlessly. It has persistent notes, a strict Pomodoro engine, and a distraction-free YouTube widget.
The Launch Day Reality Check I launched on Product Hunt today. I thought the indie community would rally around it. Instead, I got completely buried. I'm currently sitting somewhere around #280. I tried to post my story on Hacker News—my account was too new, so I got blocked. I tried to share it on Reddit—the AutoModerator instantly deleted it for having a link.
It’s been a brutal 24 hours of refreshing dashboards and fighting algorithms.
The Pivot It stings, but I'm still incredibly proud of the codebase I wrote.
I realized today that while Focus Mode is a great study tool, the underlying code is actually exactly what I wish I had when I started. I figured other devs and founders are probably fighting the exact same messy CSS, layout grids, and state issues when building their own SaaS dashboards.
So, instead of letting the project die at the bottom of PH, I packaged the entire UI into a plug-and-play React boilerplate to save developers 40+ hours of setup time.
If anyone here is building a tool and wants to skip the UI headache, I’ve put the full source code on Gumroad. Since today’s launch was a disaster, I set up a 50% off discount for the IH community for the next 24 hours: 👉https://saurabhraj22.gumroad.com/l/hyvlhz
I would genuinely appreciate any raw feedback on the UI, the code structure, or just advice from veteran founders on how you handle days where the algorithms just decide you don't exist. Back to the drawing board! 🙏
