CoderNotes
Cache your brain
Okay, this is weird... CoderNotes.io launched five days ago. But today, for whatever reason, I woke up to hundreds of new users to the application.
It seems that, somehow, CoderNotes.io has become the top app of the day on ProductHunt!
Well, I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth! I’ll add an update when all the craziness is over!
Today, is CoderNote’s official beta release!
https://betalist.com/startups/codernotes
My hand was somewhat forced today, as a product for developers would be better to release on a weekday, not a weekend. Hopefully we still get some attention from the betalist page. What I’m really hoping for is just a couple backlinks in order to build up the site’s reputation, and maybe help the blog rank a bit higher on Google.
Since the Alpha launch in early March, here are some of the features that have been added to CoderNotes:
-
Comments on notes, which allows for a more community-feel for public notes
-
Full IDE-like experience when making a note. This includes simple things like syntax highlighting for over 100 languages, but also error and warning messages, just like in an IDE.
-
Tags - Another helpful way to categorize notes. With this, CoderNotes now analyzes your note across six unique attributes, which makes searching for a note extremely consistent and accurate.
I’ve noticed a bit of a “tipping point” with these features being added, where people no longer feel like it’s missing core features, and it feels like a full-fledged app. It’s pretty cool to see something I’ve built reach that status!
Lessons Learned
Some lessons that I’ve learned getting here, that you should consider if you are planning on launching a beta:
-
You’ll want to build the product as quick as possible. But don’t be afraid to take it slower and focus on marketing. You know that you can build your product, given enough time and effort. What you don’t know is if people will be interested. Focus on customers first, then the product.
-
Consider doing pre-sales.
Like I mentioned above, I wish I had done a bit more customer-focused development after I decided to work on CoderNotes. If I could do it again, I would get at least 10 developers to commit to putting some amount down as a pre-purchase, just to have a really good focus on what people are actually looking for.
- Get people in as quick as possible.
Some people waited on my email list for over a month before they were finally able to access the beta. By then, they had lost interest. In retrospect, I think I should have let anyone in who wanted in, even as the product was still really rough. I would have been able to have conversations with the people who really liked the product (and those who didn’t to see what could be better!), and had even more motivation as I was developing.
Big milestone today, strangers are using codernotes.io :)
I just finished a major UI redesign using Adam Wathan's TailwindUI, and I'm happy to say that it's ready to share with some early adopters!
The first CoderNotes commit was Febrary 6th, which means that I was able to build the core product in one day short of a month. I'm super proud of that, especially since my last product took 8 months of development, and I never even released it!
The big takeaway is to release as early as possible. Getting feedback is critical, and it's so easy for us as developers to work in our little box and not expose our products to the world.
-
2
Hey Kevin, looks great, our company doesn't like code comments so much (and truthfully some of them, like wip's, todo's, or best pracgices, are necessary but at the same time can become disrupting) so I'm looking to try this personally and if it works well I'd be happy to recommend it.
Just signed up for the beta 👍
-
1
Sent you an email! Thanks YuanHao!
-
-
2
If any IndieHackers would be interested in trying out codernotes.io in the Alpha, send me an email at kevin@codernotes.io! I'm still looking for more feedback to shape the direction of this product!
-
1
the page takes too long to load :)
-
-
1
dang that theme is slick, really liking the colors
side note your faq spinners could rotate on the same axis
Today, I published my first blog post for CoderNotes: A Day With CoderNotes
I wanted to have a longer post that explained to developers exactly how my product can be used, and how it can be used to save them a ton of headache.
I'm super happy with the post, and I'm glad to have a resource to direct people to now to give them an idea of how to use CoderNotes.
What do you think? Do I do a good job of explaining the use-case of my product?
-
2
Nicely done. I like to see products in action like this. It clears up in my mind what the product actually does in a way that the pitching you get on a typical SaaS home / pricing page can't.
-
1
Thanks! I really worked hard to explain where the value lies in the product, as I think it can be unclear just from the description
-
-
1
I love it! I have never written anything like this before, but I think it's great. It's so exciting to finally share something of myself. I am really proud of myself for taking the first step towards becoming a published author. Try this Facebook Marketing Company Las Vegas to contact best marketing companies. I know that there are still many more steps to take and obstacles to overcome, but I know that if I keep going, my dreams will come true.
-
1
Neat. Funnily this is exactly what I already do but in my notes tool or on my local jekyll blog in md. I think fast search-ability seems like the key feature for CoderNotes. (because there are times where I can't find something in my notes, even though I have this vague sense while googling that I've been here before :)
-
1
Yep, the two main features in my mind are the search and the sharing.
Search: Searches by every relevant field, including url reference if there is one, so it's much more likely to find a good match than a basic ctrl + f.
Sharing: Even if you haven't taken a note, you can still find the result in the public databank.
If you don't mind me asking, what's stopping you from joining the beta?
-
1
Hi @Kevcon80 - A bit delayed here but to answer your question candidly 1. I have a system that works. Not perfectly but it's good enough so there an inertia to investing in a change. 2. I am solo dev right now so the sharing aspect doesn't apply to me. And from the pricing I figured I am not the target audience here, because while I am not sure about paying out of pocket for something like this if my previous employer had purchased it for my dev team I likely would've used it. Anyway hope that helps give you one data point.
-
1
Hey, thanks for the response! Can you think of anything that would have convinced you to try it out? As far as pricing, there is a free plan that free forever.
-
-
-
-
1
Congrats @Kevcon80. 🙌 The first one is usually a tough one to get shipped. I'm not a coder so I can't comment. Simply wanted to acknowledge the action you took. 🙂
-
1
Appreciate it! I'm hoping to do them frequently :)
-
I'm super excited to announce that I've developed CoderNotes to the point that it's ready to be tested by people besides myself!
Lessons learned:
1) Build less than the minimum.
Right now, I'm missing features like deleting and editing. But I have the main reason someone would use the product, and that's good enough.
2) Spend as little time building it as possible.
Now that I can get real feedback, I'm even more motivated to work on it. Plus, I'll get a real good idea of how much people like the product.
3) Finding the right people is a challenge.
In an alpha, the app isn't ready for the whole world. Ideally, you'd find early adopters who want the product so bad that they don't care it crashes half of the time. However, I've found that it takes a lot of effort to find those people. Because of that, I don't have as many alpha users as I'd like.
On the last point, how do you all go about finding early adopters? Should I be more focused on cold outreach?
(P.S. If you'd be interested in trying out CoderNotes, send me an email and we can see if you'd be a good fit! Alternatively, if you'd rather wait for a more refined beta, you can sign up at the link above.)
First Time Founder episode two is out! I've been working hard on the product and the podcast, so I hope this episode is a bit better than the previous one. TLDR of the podcast:
- Product is one feature away from the Alpha
- Beta will come after a redesign of the UI, and will be open to the public
- Podcast format will begin to normalize starting episode three - for now, it stays free-form!
Hope you all enjoy!
Today, the codernotes beta landing page is officially open! I'm excited to feel like it's at a place where I'm ready to show it off.
Super thanks to Landen.co to allow me to just focus on the copy instead of the design of the page. I am definitely a happy customer and highly recommend them to anyone here who is trying to rapidly create a high-quality landing page.
Here's the landing page, check it out!
https://codernotes.io
I've also started a founder podcast - the first episode is finally released and on spotify! Apple/iTunes will be coming shortly. If you are as obsessed with these kind of podcasts as I am, here's another one where I will be building CoderNotes in public, and sharing the highs and lows.
https://open.spotify.com/show/648TRHNblfKZAfNrTdFAfR
If you have any questions about landing pages, podcast recording/hosting, or general feedback about CoderNotes, I'd love to hear it!
Yesterday, I shared my problem page: https://codingcourseproblem.landen.co/
I don't have a solution, but I wanted to find out what other devs had a similar problem, and if it was painful enough to solve. Thanks to everyone! Expect numbers shortly :)
30 Comments
How did you make that promo video? Looks really good
Thanks, this was done via a contractor on Fiverr who does semi-custom work. I'm pretty happy with the result!
What is the tech stack of your web app?
Svelte, phoenix, And hasura.io
The design is pretty slick and I love the product, it is fast. Did you design everything? or bought a template.
Thanks, have you made an account or was just browsing? I'm trying to talk to as many of my customers as I can right now and narrow-in on who gets the most value out of it.
For design, I used tailwindUI, so it is a mix of pre-built components and custom CSS.
🎉 congrats.
Same happened with my product on PH, six days later after posting.
Still wondering why 🤔
Thanks! I did end up asking PH support and got this response:
I bet it's just hand picked few times a week.
It's nice that you have asked them, I just thought I'm that lucky 😅
nice !
That's awesome! Congrats. I hope you'll have the time to keep us posted on your challenges and wins as you grow. I've been using CoderNotes a bit and really like it.
A browser extension to clip code notes and auto fill language and link would be nice. I find myself searching for solutions and thinking I need to come back and add this page to my codernotes, but rarely do.
That's a great idea! Mind throwing it on the roadmap?
https://www.app.codernotes.io/roadmap/
Also, mind if I pick your brain about CoderNotes via email?
Just added it. Email me anytime.
Sent to your icloud, and thanks!
Just to tie off this thread in a nice little ribbon, I got an official response from ProductHunt as to what happened:
In other words, I lucked out :slightly_smiling_face:
Thanks a ton to everyone who supported the surprise re-launch yesterday! CoderNotes.io ended up at #2 on PH, with 285 upvotes!
(I'll be writing up the results once the traffic starts to die down again!)
This is interesting. Is it supposed to work as a sort of note respository for all devs? Or just teams? Or just personal?
It has all three :)
All devs: share public notes and learnings for free.
Personal: private notes visible only to you ($5/mo)
Teams: Notes for developers that can shared between your team, but not visible to the general public ($99/10 devs)
It’s still too early for the product to figure out where the main source of revenue is going to come from. Right now it’s almost exclusively individuals
I brought a domain commit.fun to do similar thing for git commands with a nice search engine. Never got time to work on it.
Excellent product and execution, goodluck.
Thank you! That’s exactly the type of pain I am trying to solve with CoderNotes.io :)
I must say, this is a really good idea!
Thanks Troy! I’d love to hear what aspect in particular you find the most interesting
The fact I can store code snippets in a central location, and easily look it up for future use. I've kind of used Trello for this, but for commands I regularly use in the command line.
Love hearing this, because it’s exactly what I felt was missing from other note managers, and the main reason I made CoderNotes.io!
Since then, it’s also become about sharing knowledge with the dev community, but the core use-case remains. Thanks for checking it out'
I can give you some deep feedback related to the UI/UX in exchange on your feedback to my product :) Interested? :)
Btw indeed I like the idea, but what about comparing to github gists for example?
I have a section in the FAQ about gists :)
Q: What about Github Gists?
Ah okay :) Nice one then!
Congratulations Kevin, the product looks super useful! :)
Thank you! I’m pretty happy with how far the app has come :)
This comment was deleted 6 years ago
Awesome! I’d love to hear your thoughts once you’ve tried it out!
This comment was deleted 5 years ago
Cool, let me know what you think!