Pointway

I think I could benefit from some SEO, so I decided to get a blog up and start writing some short posts. There are plenty of relevant topics/ideas I have in mind to write about. If anything, it can help drive traffic to Pointway just by matching Google searches and stuff.

It actually took like an entire day to get the blog up. I didn't want to use Wordpress or Ghost since I really like having control over everything. So what I did was basically copy the default Ghost theme and implemented it into a Next.js React web app, just like Pointway.

I'm using Forestry.io to add and edit blog posts. This way I don't need to touch the code to actually write up an article. It's nice - it commits the changes to the repo just like I would do if I were editing the code itself. This triggers my Heroku deployment which automatically publishes the new (or edited) post to the site.

https://blog.pointway.app

After some feedback, I knew I had plenty of work to do to clean up the UI and UX of the app. After a bit of a break, I finally got back into the zone and completely redesigned Pointway.

It mainly just needed a much better flow between going from one feature to the next. It also just needed more of a dashboard-style structure and design due to its nature of being an app to manage personal finances. There is still plenty of work to do, but it's at a really great spot.

I still really need to get feedback. It's been hard even with the few friends who have been trying it out. Since I feel like the app itself is in a good spot for marketing, I think I'll focus more energy there at this point, more than development. It's time to get it in the right users' hands and validate the idea and find product market fit!

I've had a general idea in mind for a very long time to solve a problem of mine: I needed a quick and easy way to visualize both monthly spendings and also earned credit card points all in one place. It took some time but I finally decided to just start somewhere and build the thing. Since I needed to build confidence in my ability to create a website from scratch, I decided to start much smaller and build my own personal website. It's something I needed anyways. Once that was done, I was ready to work on an actual idea of mine.

After about 2-3 weeks of hacking this together, I decided I really should get it out there. It's still super limited in features, but it has the basics. A user can create an account, log into their credit card account (via Plaid), and they can see their transactions along with the points earned. For now I'm focusing only on the Chase rewards system since that is what I know best at the moment.

Also, it does not import any accounts besides for credit card accounts. No checking, savings, etc will be imported. Maybe this will change one day, who knows.

I should mention that there are most definitely bugs present. It also does not work very well on mobile, as I did not focus on usage on a small screen (yet).

I would love it if some interested folks can give it a try and provide feedback. The app is in a pretty good position to grow with actual user-directed features. I definitely don't want to waste time adding features that are not actually desired.

Thanks in advance, and I'm looking forward to meeting my users!