Why I built an Offline-First app for Mushroom Farmers (and rejected the Cloud)
Hi hackers! I’m Rodolfo.
While everyone seems to be building AI wrappers or Cloud SaaS these days, I spent the last few months doing the exact opposite: I built a 100% Local-First app for a very specific niche: Mushroom Cultivators.
Here is the story (and why I rejected the Cloud):
I’ve been cultivating mushrooms for about 3 years (Cordyceps, Lion's Mane, etc.). As my hobby turned into an obsession, I moved my "lab" to a basement area. I quickly ran into two major problems that existing apps couldn't solve:
The "Basement" Problem: Serious cultivation often happens in places with zero Wi-Fi (basements, remote farms, steel-walled labs). Cloud apps were useless to me when I needed them most.
The Privacy Problem: Let's be honest—mycology can be a "legally gray" area in many parts of the world. I didn't feel comfortable having my strain names, yield data, and inventory tracked on someone else's server.
So I built MycoHub.
I decided to go against the grain and build it Offline-First. Your data lives on your device. Period. No "cloud sync" required to function. No tracking pixels watching your harvest.
The Tech Stack (for the nerds here ): I built it using React Native + WatermelonDB. Dealing with local-first architecture (migrations, sync conflicts if I ever add cloud, local image storage) was way harder than just spinning up a Firebase backend, but the "instant load" feel is unbeatable.
The Business Model: Since I don't have server costs for user data, I can offer a generous Freemium model with a "Farm Tier" (Lifetime Deal) for power users who need features like:
Genealogy Tracking: Linking "Parent" agar plates to "Child" jars.
Recipe Scaling: Auto-calculating substrate ratios for bulk batches.
I’d love your feedback: I'm bootstrapping this solo and currently sitting at $0 MRR.
Are there other "offline-first" founders here? How do you handle user backups without cloud?
Do you think the "Privacy" angle is a strong enough selling point for a niche like this?
If you want to roast my landing page - www.fungisoft.xyz
Thanks for reading!
Thank you so much for this thoughtful analysis! You really nailed the core insight — "constraints drive better product decisions."
The environment constraint is real. I've been in enough basement labs with zero signal to know that cloud-first apps simply don't work for this use case. Most founders building cultivation tools have never actually set foot in a grow lab.
On privacy — I completely agree with your framing. Privacy alone wouldn't sell. But privacy + offline-first + domain understanding creates something generic productivity apps can't replicate. The moat is the intersection, not any single feature.
Great questions:
Backup without cloud:
Yes! This is actually my next feature. Export to JSON/CSV (encrypted option) that users can save to USB/SD, Google Drive (manual), or send to themselves. Also exploring QR code backup for quick phone-to-phone transfer. The "my phone died and lost everything" fear is very real in this community — people have years of selective breeding data they can't replace.
WatermelonDB migrations:
Honestly, this is the hardest part of offline-first. I handle it with:
It's not as smooth as "we handle everything on the server" but it works. The pain is real though — every schema change keeps me up at night wondering if I'm going to brick someone's database.
Distribution:
You're spot on about the communities (Reddit, Shroomery, Discord), but there's a catch — I've been cultivating for years but wasn't active in forums. Drop a product link as a "new member" and you get banned immediately.
So my strategy is slow: build credibility first by actually helping people and sharing knowledge, establish myself as a real cultivator (not just "some dev who watched a TED talk about mushrooms"), then — only when it's organic and relevant — mention that I built something that solved my own problem.
It's not scalable, but it's authentic. The word-of-mouth has been coming from users who discovered it organically and recommended it to their circles. That feels more sustainable anyway.
The economics work because zero server costs means I can stay profitable with very few users. If this grows, great. If not, I'm still helping growers and covering my costs.
Really appreciate you taking the time to break this down. The "moat is the stack of constraints" framing is something I'm definitely borrowing for my messaging. 😅
This is one of the best examples of "constraints drive better product decisions" I've seen on IH.
The offline-first choice isn't just a technical preference here — it's a product requirement dictated by the actual environment (basements, remote farms, steel-walled labs). Most founders would default to Firebase and never question it. The fact that your users literally can't use cloud apps when they need them most makes this an obvious call in hindsight, but it takes domain knowledge to see it.
The privacy angle is interesting. To your question — I think "privacy" alone is rarely enough to sell software. But "privacy + offline-first + niche domain expertise" together create a combination that's nearly impossible for a generic tool to replicate. The moat isn't any single feature, it's the stack of constraints you're designing around.
A few thoughts:
The LTD model makes sense given zero server costs. Smart economics.