Improving the product
Making progress towards a beautiful product
Today was all about the product (as opposed to the landing page).
This is what got done:
Made Sentry’s User Feedback button change in tandem with the app’s theme (ok I did work a little but on the landing page 😅)
Followed up with customers of the ShipFast stack
Took notes from the recorded meeting with Joshua
Tested out an npx script
Followed up with customers of the ShipFast stack
Three of the 10 ShipFast customers I asked to video chat with replied. Two of them did not know how to code. One of them knew iOS’s Swift, but had no web dev knowledge. This is a strong indication that one of the problems a product like LaunchFast solves is getting begginers quickly up to speed on the best technology stack and plays a huge role in education.
I’m very much looking forward to interviewing a ShipFast customer that is a seasoned developer (if there are any) to hear their perspective.
Either way, I haven’t yet found anyone who’d be willing to have a proper Jobs-to-be-done video interview. I’ll keep digging.
Took notes from the recorded meeting with Joshua
Joshua is a seasoned developer and was super kind to have a video chat with me, so I could see him use my product for the first time. I learn a TON from watching him.
I watched those recordings today and made a list of friction points.
Tested out an npx script
The first friction point I’m solving is the user having to download the repo, extracting it, and running a command line in its parent folder. I can simplify this.
I’ve published an NPM package that allows users to simply run “npx launchfast“ and the script will ask them for a private access token, which is given to them upon purchase.
My script runs fine, but the create-remix command is failing without a useful error message. So I went looking into the create-remix source code to try and figure out why its failing. No luck yet, but tomorrow I’ll find the problem and we’ll all be able to run “npx launchfast” like a boss 😎
Conclusion
Today I was thinking about the kinds of problems a product like LaunchFast solves.
Before I actually do the interviews, this is mere speculation, but I do suspect LaunchFast is well positioned to solve 3 major problems:
Learning web development
Speeding up development
Minimizing technical debt for teams
Is my suspition is correct, my main competitor is not ShipFast, but instead:
Learning Web Development
Online learning platforms: Udemy, Coursera, Codecademy, freeCodeCamp
Books and eBooks
Coding Bootcamps
Tutorial Websites: W3Schools, tutorialspoint
YouTube Channels
Speeding Up Development
Code Generators and Templates: Remix, Remix Stacks, ShipFast
Low-code/No-code Platforms: Bubble, OutSystems, Webflow
Minimizing Tech Debt for teams
Documentation Tools: Swagger, Read the Docs, Docusaurus
So, most likely, one of the strongest results of my interviews will be that I need to have stellar documentation that is also beginner friendly.
That’s it for today folks. I hope you’re having a great week so far and see you tomorrow! Keep on rocking 🤘