Building a Task Planner App
The Beginning of My Journey as an Indie Hacker: Why I Decided to Build Solo
As a product designer and former founder, I’ve always been driven by a passion for creating. Ideation is a particular space that many of us live in for the majority of time during the day. The world suddenly becomes unlocked and all its potential seeps into reality. All that being said let’s dive into the main topic of this piece now that you have some idea of who I am and how I think about things.
The Task Planner Idea and Building Solo
Throughout my professional journey, I’ve often found myself managing multiple high-level goals—moving up in my career, building independent businesses, and maintaining a fulfilling personal life. At first glance, achieving all of these can feel overwhelming, but I believe it’s possible to succeed in each area without compromise. I don’t believe in setting limitations for myself, which is why I realized I needed a system to organize and prioritize my life—one that goes beyond the typical rigid task planners that people abandon after a week. I wanted something different, a tool that aligns with my unique approach and helps me not only manage tasks but also achieve my life goals. That’s where the idea for this new kind of task planner was born—a system that helps you prioritize what matters most and keeps you on track to realize your ambitions.
Having spent only a brief time in the startup space, I quickly came to understand the weight and responsibility that comes with building something from the ground up. A startup requires you to focus on many other aspects, like branding, marketing, funding, and scaling, which can divert time and energy away from the core task of actually creating the product itself. My previous experiences as a founder also taught me valuable lessons, particularly the frustrations of working with developers, which frequently resulted in delays, miscommunication, and wasted time. These challenges ultimately pushed me toward becoming more self-reliant taking full control of this project and building solo. I believe it's a superpower to turn ideas into reality, and my mission is to continually work toward mastering that ability.
Challenges Ahead
Having only a background in UX design with some small knowledge of front-end code I anticipate that the road ahead will be an interesting one. I am looking forward to exploring the capabilities of tooling that I could be applied for development. In my initial exploration, I have found many applications/companies that offer services for both no-code and low-code options but I anticipate that these will only go so far. I will continue to be open-minded in my options.
What’s Next
I have already started some of the early research and exploration work for the design of the app. My next steps will be to turn my wireframes/sketches into high-fidelity mockups while simultaneously researching further into development. In the mid to long term, I plan on writing weekly updates for this project to go over what I accomplished for the week as well as discussing my headspace and thoughts. In the meantime, I will keep my head down and immerse myself in the work and building.
Have a great Saturday!
JR