Together

After saving up for a couple years, I was able to hire a dev team out of Sri Lanka to help build the MVP for Together.

Im a UI designer with coding experience but don't have the chops to build out a complete app myself. As a product manager, I had connections to Sri Lanka with dev teams I had worked with at GE. I messaged developers on the team I trusted to see if they had one they trusted I could work with. Eventually I found a great connection.

After providing a product requirements document with user journeys and mockups, we had a few sessions to talk about UX and requirements. They provided a technical design document which I had a full stack developer friend review for validity.

I also got quotes from US based shops. Going with friends in Sri Lanka ended up saving me 53% on the cost.

I didn't accept their first price but also didn't try to haggle too much as I wanted to make sure the product was quality. Then later it was no struggle for fixing defects since it was a fair price to us both.

This is probably not on most product milestone lists. 😂

I have OCD. I struggled with it my whole life, not even realizing I had it.

I self-medicated in many ways and really f'ed up my life.

Eventually it got so bad I lost my job as a web developer. I guess they didn't like me sitting at my desk for hours doing nothing? Even though I wasn't doing nothing per se.

With OCD, your brain takes what a normal thought might be to someone else and it becomes a vortex you can't get out of.

For example, say you have a quick thought about running your manager's head over with a dump truck. Most of us would laugh to ourselves and move on but someone with OCD becomes excessively concerned with a "dark" thought like that and feels they must do certain things to make it go away. If they don't do those things they feel something terrible will happen.

If you'd like to read my full story of recovery you can check it out here: https://journeytogether.io/my-joureny-with-ocd-and-my-path-to-recovery/

After losing my job, I realized I needed help and it was at this point I started my path of recovery.

If it wasn't for this experience, I would have never realized the need there is to help others on recovery.

During recovery, you learn to reach out to others when you are feeling triggered to act on your addiction. Many things can get in the way of reaching out. Reaching out is one of keys for recovery success.

Many, many times in my recovery I've reached out to others and it has helped me be successful.

This is what lead me to build Together. Anytime, as much as needed, users can join an on demand meeting to share what their burdens. Like an online AA meeting but open for all topics.

Much like a Halo or video game match, Together joins people together into a group. Then Together controls who is learned to speak and who isn't.

As they say, solve your own problems. 😉