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Tell Me Why It'll Suck: 5min demo of raw app concept. Seeking your POV.

Hey Guys,

TLDR:
I'd love your brutal / rapid / mean / nice / off-the-cuff / reactive feedback to my app concept:
https://vimeo.com/735631609 <-- This is me introducing it with a prototype.

WHY THIS APPROACH:
I'm working on getting better at rapidly testing ideas with markets before fully building. I know this is a rule of product, but it's not something I have a history of being good at.

With progress in mind, I spent the weekend prototyping a re-design/re-think of an app idea I've been kicking around for a year now. I got feedback from a friend last week, really reconsidered the core feature-set, and here we are.

And the other reason? I want to build something good. I have many concepts floating around in B2B and B2C, and want to test them quickly. I like this one though.

WHY THIS APP CONCEPT:
I've really struggled with low self esteem and the 'chip on my shoulder' for years and years. At the peak, this manifested as a pretty severe anxiety disorder and depression. Since those years things have really improved (got married, just had my first son, really in a good groove) and I attribute that heavily to finding balance.

Balance in my life, and not sacrificing key parts of myself for the sake of others, was critical. For me, journaling about my key daily activities was a core part of my process (tracking, planning, reflecting) and I, inevitably, thought "what if I could help others by building an app for this?"

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP:
Tear into it! Give me your real feedback. React, be free to tell me your thoughts, don't hold back. I'm looking for honest opinions -- good and bad.

Thanks for taking a look -- here's that link again:
https://vimeo.com/735631609

on August 2, 2022
  1. 2

    It's definitely cool! Here's my 2c:
    Likes:

    • Encourages a focus style journaling and asks me to check in on a recurring basis.
    • Community aspect is interesting. I think it creates some sense of camaraderie.
    • Seeing the balance of my activity is probably the most interesting part for me. I don't know how much I would use it on a daily basis, but I'd like to see it as a monthly or weekly share report like Apple Screen Time.

    Considers:

    • I could see the community being distracting and people could spend a lot of time scrolling vs. doing the core function journaling. I would consider shifting around the pages so perhaps the journaling or the today screen is the home screen.
    • The emoji's on the right hand side of the card feel more like reactions from the community to me. It's not immediately recognizable and might create a learning curve that the emojis represent the categories the entry is related to. I would also consider if that's necessary? Or if that's better suited for a filter of some type.
    • I'd be interested in joining a specific community or group vs. seeing every user's posts. I think it makes the content less overwhelming and even more community oriented - for example, if somebody who's interested in exercising, only sees all these posts about health and wellness. I could see that as being doubly motivating.

    Overall:

    • I like the concept. It's cool and creates a more 'fun' way to journal and analyze the effects of good, healthy practices.
    • I don't know if I would use it. I don't like doing a lot of things on my phone. I prefer using my laptop to write content or just pen and paper. But of course, the latter doesn't really allow for analysis.
    1. 1

      Hi Allison! This is such great feedback -- I feel like I should've paid for this! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

      The Considerations section is particularly powerful (as expected) and I 100% agree with each of your three points here. Thanks for the design pointer on the emojis (I'm going to make that change), and the group concept is definitely on the roadmap beyond MVP. I think affinity groups is so key to people maximizing value and the general feed risks being useless (I don't just browse random twitter posts!) but I hope the initial userbase will keep it somewhat contained.

      Anyway, you rock. Thanks again for taking the time to check it out and put your thoughts to paper. Cheers - CG

      1. 1

        Awesome! I'm glad it helped :). Looking forward to seeing your progress on this!

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