Outtakes on why building a consumer product is hard, fun, and probably a fail (for me).

It was hard. - I got to learn through struggle

1. I had to gather a team.
2. I had to motivate a team with limited capital and no promise of future capital.
3. I worked a lot during this period of time.
   1. I decided to do this while training for an Ironman and working at my current role. I consistently woke up around 5am and was hyper-disciplined with my time. I dedicated my weekends to this work, especially Sundays. I sadistically loved working on Friday evenings. I reserved Saturdays for riding my bike for 6 hours and seeing my friends.
   2. This was not a sustainable lifestyle.
4. I thought about failure often.
   1. I had to learn how to continue anyways.
5. I learned to manage stress and anxiety quite well.
6. I had to decide against things I wanted.
   1. even though the main user ended up being me :), I still had a goal to design for users at large, so I said no to myself. But I think no is as important as a creative yes in the PM world.
   2. I was consistently being asked to fine-tune my product sense and systems thinking
   3. I pivoted and descoped
7. I had to know when to stop. And I am not sure what I want to do next.
   1. My conviction on the idea has wavered amidst lots of change in the tech world. I was building a product for the past, but it does not keep up with the AI trends.

It was fun. - I took away many positives

1. I learned a lot!!!!!!
   1. Design - I can use Figma: create responsive components, design system, component library, prototype layouts. I contributed to brand design (from mood boarding to Adobe illustrator creations) and motion design.
   2. Business - Not too hard in the age of AI as I had help writing a privacy policy, terms of service, etc.
   3. Coding - I can confidently say that I can build a website from scratch that actually looks good. I also have a much better understanding of the limitations of APIs.
   4. Product - I can create a vision more naturally, but writing down every detail and prioritizing was great practice. I also learned how having a better understanding of technical and business specific constraints would have improved my product work.
      1. It taught me more about product in a shorter period of time and improved my skills at my current role.
2. The build to ship turnover was addictively quick.
   1. I want to seek this feeling. (triple underlined)
3. I exposed myself to the startup world.
   1. Involved myself at VC events, startup incubators, and founders - saw a breadth of interests and personalities which ranged from amusing to inspiring.
4. I was passionate enough to convince others to join me
   1. I got direct feedback after 2 months that my former “CTO” (labels don’t matter but this was essentially her role) that my excitement and vision pushed her to dedicate time towards this. She ended up accepting a role at a health-tech startup which she loves which makes me very happy for her.
5. I built an app! That I actually use.
6. I felt what being “jump out of bed excited to work” felt like.
7. I had something I was excited about to share with friends.
   1. To be fair I always have things I am excited about, but this was my new thing that I liked talking about.

It is probably a fail. - I designed for my own delight, not a substantive user problem

1. I knew this going in but convinced myself due to my excitement that others would love this too.