It took me a while to decide what I wanted to build as my next project. When I build a something, whether it be an iOS app or a webapp, I only build things that I would use. For one it future proofs the idea so that It’ll hold my interest, two at the very least it will solve a problem that I have, and three I’ll be my first best customer and I’ll pay for the Pro upgrade 😂!
One of the tough things I always rack my brain with when done some thing new is what tech stack to use, what should I call the thing… You know important stuff. But it’s important to me.
Well I’ve been building this app for the past few weeks and I think I have the majority of the tech stack hammered out and also I got a name and a domain!
Tech Stack
I will be learning a new stack as I embark on this project but that is also what is exciting. Learning something new is a huge benefit!
- Ruby and Ruby on Rails for the backend and frontend
- DigitalOcean Ruby on Rails droplet made it very easy to get setup
- NameCheap for purchasing the domain name
- Site5 for CPanel hosting (then using a DNS A record to point the domain to the DigitalOcean droplet)
- RubyMine for IDE (though I am thinking of switching to VisualStudio Code because I’m not getting a lot of value out of the IDE and it costs monthly)
- Copilot for code completion and to increase speed of development
- ChatGPT for learning how to program ruby and rails things
- Postgres for database as it’s JSONB columns are very good for what I need to use
- Eventually I plan to implement Clickhouse as an analytics database. Though the app would need to grow pretty big before this would be needed
- MixPanel and RevenueCat for iOS inspiration. Both of their client libraries are open sourced and I learned a ton about how to track user profiles and in app events reading these libraries
- GitLab for ruby on rails inspiration. GitLab is an open sourced enterprise rails app. So I’ve been looking through it to see how the Pros are building rails apps
- JumpstartPro as a saas starter
- Paddle for billing
- Mailgun for emails
- HubSpot for marketing emails
- GitHub Desktop for managing the repositories
- Git for source control
- Swift for iOS development
- r/iOSProgramming and r/saas reddits for advice and research
Why I Choose Rails
Not too long ago when I was feeling the itch to start something, I bought a saas template for ruby on rails that I was really interested in. I bought it partly because I wanted to see how to construct a rail apps but also because it would save me loads of time in building out the foundations of an application.
Rails is the stack that is new to me. The codebase I’m most familiar with is iOS first then Php, laravel, and Vue. So making this decision went contrary to what most people were saying when starting something new. They all said use what you know but because I already had that Saas template, was interested in learning rails, and I think rails is sexy I went with rails.
Rails The Good Bad And The Ugly
Coming from coding environments where we use languages with strict typing (think Swift, Java, Typescript) it’s been a struggle getting use to Ruby at first because of the lack of code completion and debugging features (if anyone knows any was to help with with email me!). Copilot has helped a lot with code completion but the debugging is kind of tough still. The best I’ve been doing have been printing data to the console, caveman stuff 🤷♂️
What I do like about rails is the speed of prototyping. It is so fast to get features built it is hard to complain about the lack of static types. What would take me 1 hour to do in Swift or Java takes 10-20 minutes in rails. Really fast.
My Plans How To Get Customers
I’m still in the beginning phases of building the product but marketing is already something I am starting to think about. It’s going to be a huge endeavor I’m excited to learn about.
I’m a big fan of Nathan Barry and his story in how he built ConvertKit. He started writing 1000 words a day in order to create enough context to make a small dent online and I am going to do the same. He also did a bunch of direct sales early in ConvertKits history so direct sales is going to be a big part of my strategy as well.
This is my plan so far
- Interact with communities on reddit and online where my target audience is
- SEO and content creation
- Direct sales to companies I think would be a fit for the service
Can I See What You’re Building?
The web app isn’t ready yet to post a link but I’m committed to working in public on this project so look out for future posts about how things are going, where I’m failing, and the wins I’m getting. Not only do I think this service has some potential but I also think I will get the chance to share a lot of learnings with people here so stay tuned.
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