February 2022 - One year round

Originally posted on the strackt devlog in February 2022, during the early build. Brought over so the whole journey lives in one place.

The work going into an MVP 💻

Building even a minimum viable product takes a tremendous amount of work, especially as a solo developer. I've spent countless hours coding, testing, debugging, and iterating to get the core functionality in place. It's been a constant cycle of building, breaking things, fixing them, and building some more. But seeing it start to come together is extremely rewarding. 😊

Scoping is a bitch 😬

One of the hardest parts has been defining and sticking to a reasonable scope for the initial release. There are so many possibilities and directions to go in. Shiny object syndrome is real - I keep getting distracted by new ideas and nice-to-haves. I've had to be very disciplined about stripping things down to the essentials and saving the rest for later. Scope creep is an ever-present threat. 👹

Time investment is hard to predict ⏳

When I started, I vastly underestimated the time it would take to get to a launchable product. Building quality software simply takes a lot of time and effort, even for an MVP. Especially with a complex product touching many technologies. I've blown past my original timeline estimates, but I've accepted that and adjusted. You can't rush it. 🐌

Progress is awesome 📈

A year in, I'm really happy with how much progress I've made, even if I'm not as far along as I originally hoped. The core provisioning engine is working smoothly, the management workflows are coming together, and all the pieces are starting to fit. I've learned a ton and leveled up my skills in the process. Slow and steady! 🐢

Using it myself is also a lot of progress testing

One of the most satisfying things has been using Strackt to manage my own servers and projects, including the Strackt website itself. It's the ultimate dogfooding. And it's been an invaluable way to find bugs, fill in gaps, and validate the end-to-end experience. If it works for me, that's a good sign it will work for others. 😎

The first year of any project is a rollercoaster, especially an ambitious one like Strackt. But I'm ending this year energized by the progress made and excited for what's ahead. Here's to year two! 🚀