Holler Date

Excited that our Android/iOS app is finally live! We've crossed 1K+ sign ups since our website launch and I believe the mobile app will greatly increase our traction.

Checkout our promo video here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLiflB9S9mo

Download our app here!
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hollerdate.hollerdate

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/holler-date-voice-dating/id1564975956

Today I had to take a pause from writing code and write plain simple english to promote the site. My goals for writing this medium article is mainly to enhance SEO for the site through building up backlinks as well as to garner awareness for the site.

Suffered from writers block initially but finally got to finishing up the article. You'd be surprise at how bad you can be at writing when you've spent the last couple of years writing code. It took me quite awhile to rebuild the creative energies and inspiration to write an engaging piece.

Here's the medium article link in case anyone is interested!
https://hollerdate.medium.com/why-we-believe-in-the-future-of-voice-dating-f265475a4be3

Mad happy... Actually I had 10 sign ups with 5 who uploaded their voice audio clip. So in terms of the UX flow, things are working as expected that in terms of the concept, there're folks who actually were willing to upload their voice clips. So at least there's a starting point to pursue to idea.

Wish me lucks folks! I will keep updating this thread accordingly.. I'm also refreshing my knowledge and know hows about SEO and stuff.

So the 2 weeks hackathon turned into a 3 weeks sprint, but it was well worth it. Got all the features I need to validate this concept PLUS I added my stripe payment modules! Pretty cool eh?

And with that, ladies and gentleman, I humbly present to the world my baby - https://hollerdate.com/.

Feel free to tear it apart or let me know what other things I can do to improve the site!

So things didn't quite work out at my remote job. Had a few conflicts with the tech lead I was assigned to. There's always two sides of the story, but from my perspective, it was pretty hard working with a lead that didn't know the task requirements well, didn't know how to scope the timelines and task priorities well, wanted to do a lot of code refactoring and had a lot of things to say about all his team mates PRs.

When you can't scope your dev work, it slowly consumes your entire schedule. After thinking things through, I decided to leave, plus I figured I was making some good money day trading anyway, so might as well focus on making Holler Date a success and earning some small profits with day trading crypto.

Anyways, back to Holler Date... This time I was razor focused on integrating the voice functionality, match algorithm and live chat functionality. It was an intense 2 weeks hackathon (solo-kathon to be more accurate), but I am determined to launch the site by mid Feb.

So I got the code base up and running but the entirety of Jan was pretty much a lull period. I was focused on getting on board a remote job that I've just accepted due to financial pressures that I was facing - not a good experience by any mile.

Nevertheless, key accomplishments include getting the initial code base up and running with a landing page website, installing the core libraries (voice recording, auth modules, pic upload modules) and stuff...

So I pretty much worked on another startup called Holler Away prior to Holler Date and it took me a looong time to reach 20K+ sign ups (check out all my false starts in my previous indie hacker posts!).

This time, I was determine to validate the concept using a web application only and I was crystal clear in the features my MVP was gonna have. I decided if I can't validate the idea using a simple web app, then there was no point doing a mobile app version (twice the time, thrice the complexity).

In addition, I was determine to structure the code in a manner that was extremely modular and reusable, just in case this idea fails, I can always have a reusable code base to pivot to another business idea.

Decided on a react/firebase tech stack. Never fails to get things up and running for me with enough flexibility for me to change things as needed. Don't mean to start a flame war, but I've never been a fan of the no-code movement. Startups are just so fluid that unless you're building another generic run off the mill content management website, its hard to work with existing no-code rigid website templates.

Had a a brainstorming session with couple of founders at my local incubator Antler. Realised that voice tech was one of the upcoming trends in the social commerce space. Saw a good fit in the dating space since I pretty much sucked at my coming up with good dating pictures.

I remembered back in my college days we used to have this secret pal game at our freshman orientation where we would blindfold 2 participants and have them chat with one another. The blindfolds would only come off at the end of the orientation and there's always this mystery and anticipation that builds up in guessing what your partner sounded like.

Granted the random pairing didn't always worked but it's still an interesting endeavour to see how it would panned out in the online dating space.