from Hacker News

Show HN: I’m building a startup and recording the entire process on YouTube

by sampl on 10/16/19, 5:07 PM with 5 comments

  • by sampl on 10/16/19, 5:08 PM

    Hey HN,

    Having been part of a fast-growing YC startup, I wanted to show what the early days of making a product are actually like—so I'm building a startup product myself and video recording the entire process.

    Literally every minute I spend working on Shuffleboard is recorded and uploaded to YouTube. Each video is a couple hours long, and shows both my face and my screen as I work. There are about 30 sessions and about 70 hours of work so far.

    All videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFP8wPiIB7kz7pbYCnjIc...

    See the live product: https://getshuffleboard.com/

    What I've been doing:

      - Talking about who my customers are and what value I'm trying to create for them
  - Designing the basic UX
  - Interviewing potential users
  - Running usability tests
  - Designing a brand
  - Maintaining a product backlog
  - Reading documentation
  - Writing code
  - Fixing bugs
  - Learning how to write unit tests
  - Spending days trying to figure out Firestore security rules
  - Prepping for a mini-launch (including writing this HN post)
  - Getting stuck/bored/tired
  - Making lots of mistakes
    Next steps:

      - Sales
  - More usability tests/interviews
  - More features
  - Improving the visual design
  - Subscriptions with Stripe
    Tech stack:

      - React + Create React App (with styled components)
  - Firebase for the db (Firestore), plus Firebase auth and hosting
    Like in any startup, there's a rollercoaster of ups and downs. The visual brand was designed in a couple hours, but figuring out how to finally secure the Firestore database took almost a week. There are moments where I'm having a blast, moments where I want to give up, and lots of hours where nothing much happens at all.

    Would love to hear what you think :)

    Sam

  • by mellosouls on 10/16/19, 5:28 PM

    This is interesting - tho I would question the sanity of anybody who watches it all - perhaps a daily 10 minute highlight (extended for anything particularly noteworthy)?

    If nothing else, the goldfish bowl effect should keep you focused...

    Best of luck.