checknlearn

I officially accepted the product. > MVP is done <. It took me 1.5 years 🤭 This is how it is when you can spend a little time on your side project.

I think I should invest more time in design before but I can' wait anymore. I have to verify if the idea is appealing to people.
I do agree that the expectation bar for MVPs is rising year by year and we see products that are very polished when they are presented for the first time... but well, I want to test the idea.

For too long I was the only user. Although I see room for improvement, it works great for me. Let's find out if other people like it too.

It's super surprising because the project is very very much in stealth mode. I didn't post a thing about it anywhere but I did publish apps to stores.

You can create an account from four places:

• on the website,
• from the Chrome extension,
• in the ios application,
• in the android application.

I see the first signups come from mobile apps but I don't see much of activity from these users. It will be crucial for me to figure out how to convince and tell people that the app works with a web extension 🤔

Maybe I should add some functionality that doesn't require previous activity done with the web browser extension? But it's not the way it should be used. It's not why I created the service.

On the other hand, I could engage people, keep their attention, and try to sell(1) the idea of web extension + mobile flow.

Well, it's worth considering but for now, when I'll start with marketing I need to redirect people to the landing page where I have a chance to explain how it works.
Otherwise, I'll see a massive churn in mobile apps 😬

(1) the service is still free

I again had to invest some money in developer accounts and spend some time on creating promo graphics.
I still feel like the whole product lacks design 😅One day I'll fix that.

I started with publishing my app to Apple Store as I primarily use the MacBook Pro and iPhone. Then I published to Google Play after testing the app on a real device.

Surprisingly it took longer to be accepted by Google Play.

I'm still not running officially but wanted to be accepted in stores first.

Again, it took me a few months to get to another milestone.

I finally released my Chrome extension to the Chrome Web Store. I didn't know you have to pay $5 to be able to publish but that's a one-time payment that I guess protect Web Store from being flooded with nonsense extensions 🤷‍♂️

Anyway, I feel great about it. I'm a front-end engineer and my websites were available publicly before but this is the first time something mine lands "in some store".

I had to prepare a few graphics so I guess it was the right time to invest my money in Sketch. I feel like a solo-founder has to be able to design something... maybe even if that's not the highest quality. The ability to move quickly is more important.

Fingers crossed for my next milestone - add mobile apps to Apple Store and Google Play 🤞

I decided to create an animation on the very top of my landing page to show how this product works. I'm quite happy with the result 😈

In the last months, I was still developing different parts of the service. I stabilized the extension, improved mobile apps, added new things to API, connected it with email service, and prepared transactional emails.

What worries me is that after more than a year of development I still didn't push it to the public. The service works great for me. I'm using it and scratching my own itch.

Fingers crossed other people would like it too 🤞

God, I didn't know it will take so long to build the whole service. Especially when you work max 2 hours a day, in the evening, after your regular 8-hours work, playing with my son, householding, etc... 🙈

I realized that creating a service like mine is not an easy thing. I have a lot of front-end development experience but let's face it.

This is the first time I am responsible for:

• Chrome extension,
• API,
• Mobile apps,
• a website.

It took me ages to start working on a website. To not overcomplicate things, I'll go with a very clean design that I made on my own. It will need an iteration but it's fine for now.

You probably already noticed big gaps between my milestones. I barely find time for my pet project (checknlearn). I decided to pay for a logo and a design for my mobile app.

This is the first time I used Fiverr. I tried to not pick the cheapest artists and find someone from whom work I would be happy.

So I am happy with the logo but not much with the mobile app design. Anyway, I wanted to invest some money and put other people's work into it to feel like the project is not only mine. I mean, it's not something I work at nights, with no design at all. But it has its own logo and a bit of touch.

I feel like I'm building a product now 👨‍💻

A crucial part of my service is to provide an application that will collect words that were looked up in the browser before.

The app should remind people every day that they have something to repeat.

This is the way I remove the friction:

• you don't have to leave the page to check word's meaning - you just double click the word (with the extension installed),
• you don't have to create a flashcard and remember about practicing - the app will do that for you.

From a technical point of view, this is the first time I will be working on a mobile app. I bet on React Native.

I was thinking about creating a web extension that would help me in learning English or any other foreign language. I often read some stuff on the Internet and sometimes I miss some words.

I realized that even if I check something in a dictionary I tend to forget to practice that word... and it became quite frequent for me to look up the same words again and again.

Clearly, I wasn't learning anything ;)

That's how checknlearn was born. On March 18, 2018, I wrote the first lines of code. First, I had to verify if I'm able to connect with dictionaries APIs to fetch definitions or translations.

The next day I started working on the Chrome extension and connected that with a local server. It worked! 🎉

You just double click on a word and a small popover shows you word's definition 🧞‍♂️