Upakka

Sent over 2k emails and realized that email campaigns are pretty annoying to do when dealing with spam folders, bounces, open rates, and other bumps in the road that drag things like this out for a while.
When dealing with replies about problems they encounter with the site please not to take it personally, and focus on the aspects that need to be improved.

Launched a functional platform to Hacker and Designer News, I learned that there needed to be a better way to convey Upakka's purpose to the world by using an info tab on the side of the page and a better prompt for users to sign up. An overlay landing page may have been handier to use then allowed users to enter the site following it, may include later.

Pitched to a crowd of startup enthusiasts in the area, got more essential feedback, and got connections to handmade sellers in the space that I later on interviewed. We quite literally had someone pitch a product after us who could have used our platform to launch it had it been in public beta! 😂

Developed an MVP over the course of 6 weeks in the Django web framework then deployed it to AWS Lambda which took some time to learn. Following this, I went and showed it to beta users and started an email list. Also asked beta users what they thought about it and realized profiles would be a nice add on.

Following customer surveys on a previous eCommerce site idea (mainly privacy based), I noticed people in the handmade community needed some love and a better way to broadcast themselves without the worries and stress of selling while focusing on what they love doing! Also got a few passionate people around the project.