Project #3 - building 12 projects in 12 months

If you have followed my journey to build 12 projects in 12 months, you’ve already read that project #2 was not completed. I quit the development after realizing I didn’t want to continue for a number of reasons, although I had given myself another 2 weeks to complete the MVP. The lessons I learned from project 2 will be taken with me in project 3.

The idea

So what am I going to build in project 3? The main lesson I learned in project 2 was that I shouldn’t bite off more than I could chew, so I want to keep things simple and minimalistic to start with. Since starting building in public, mainly through Twitter, I had the idea to do something with the Twitter API. I noticed sometimes that I started to follow someone on Twitter and after scrolling through their profile, that I already liked some of their tweets before. This led me to my idea of building a product which lists users of which I already liked their tweet(s), but I’m not following. This way I will be able to follow accounts that (apparently) provide content I like. Chances are that they will provide more content like that. 

So the MVP is pretty basic. The main reason to do this is to see how quickly I can get something working and usable for me but also for others. If things go too quick, I already have some other functionalities that I could develop as part of the next stage of the MVP. For instance, not only listing accounts that I liked tweets of but also the other way around. Showing accounts that like your tweets, but are not following you. It might be worthwhile to get in touch with those accounts and expand your audience that way.

That can be the start of a product which utilizes the Twitter API and can be expanded with more and more functionality. 

Competition

Of course there are a lot of products that utilize the Twitter API, make you grow your following, automate tweets, schedule tweets and so on. I haven’t found a tool that does what I will be building, but if there is let me know. No or low competition is usually not a great metric, as it probably means that there isn’t a market for this, but it will be a product that I will be using myself so it will always be worthwhile building. It’s also a product I know I can develop in 1 month, getting in the flow of creating and launching and which has the potential to grow, pivot or expand as time passes.

Plan

I usually start developing right away and to be honest, while exploring the possibilities of the Twitter API I have already developed some small things, but I have made a plan for the next 4 weeks which I will try to follow.

This plan involves getting out of my comfort zone and reaching out to potential users through Twitter DMs. I will try to see if there is interest in the product while building. I might even try to set up a Product Hunt Upcoming page to generate early interest. But like I said, regardless of the interest, I will continue building the product. 

I won’t be creating a landing page with a sign up form myself. I will also keep the design very minimal, it should contain the most important elements but not more than that. Nothing too fancy, the functionality is the most important part. I don’t have a name yet, no domain name. I will decide in the upcoming week whether I will buy a domain name or not.