TinyFeather

The technology behind creating TinyFeather is simple: query the browser for some data (screen size, user agent, etc), concatenate that data into a URL that points to your server, and send a GET request for a 1x1 GIF. On the server-side, pluck off the data and store it in a database. Present that data in the form of pretty graphs and boom! Revenue generated!

That is if you can sell...

The analytics market is HUGE! The privacy-focused segment is a bit smaller, but there is enough of a market there to be able to generate a modest revenue. TinyFeather was never about the technology, it was about selling to a market segment of like-minded folks who care about their users.

However, there's no way to square the fact that, no matter the safe guards, analytics and user metrics make me feel icky. They are useful in the right hands—when you set up hypothesis that your data can help test—but in the wrong hands, data can be dangerous. If not dangerous to the user, than dangerous to the vain who need metrics to drive their identities.

I'm self aware enough to know that my position is extreme, but as a founder, you know how passionate you need to be about your company in order for it to succeed. For TinyFeather, that passion stopped crossing that threshold early on. No passion means no sales means wasted time, effort, and money. I'm still passionate about the technology, but the product is self leaves me wanting.

What I've learned from TinyFeather will never leave me. Now, I can build custom privacy-focused analytics into all of my future products. Analytics that I control with data that I can protect and feel good about. TinyFeather is a template, not a product.

When my need for analytics resurfaces, I'll mount TinyFeather on the same domain as whatever product I'm working on—this will prevent ad-blockers and other privacy tools from corrupting that data. I won't have to hide behind pixels, I can just send a proper request. When this time comes, perhaps I'll opensource TinyFeather as a self-hosted solution. Until that time, we can say goodbye.

Today, I deployed the initial "walking skeleton" of the TinyFeather application!

I think this is past the point where Indie Hackers should have sold their product, but I've been very timid about my ability to deliver.

This milestone has proven that I have a grasp on the core technologies required to build out a real MVP! Luckily, due to the large pool of similar products, I feel confident that there is good market fit, so next comes the steps of getting TinyFeather in front of real people.

The next milestone to look out for is the dog-fooding milestone: host TinyFeather analytics on https://tinyfeather.com

Today, I posted https://tinyfeather.com to a group of my peers on Twitter. I've completed the landing page, though I'm not ready to get feedback from IndieHackers, yet. It's a Jekyll site hosted on Netlify & Github and leverages Netlify forms for signups! Though I'm not a designer, the design was the more interesting parts. I'm excited to get feedback, soon!