Here’s how and why I built my last app following lean principles - Practice makes Perfect
The app
My new app “Practice makes Perfect” is designed to be a tool to be used when learning a new skill. There is a theory that puts forward, if you practise something for 10,000 hours you become an expert in that skill. Practice makes Perfect, aloows you to keep track of your practise sessions by recording each one and totalling up your overall time practising time.
I came up with the idea for the app while learning my own hobbies. While playing the banjo I was wondering how long I had been learning it for overall.
Why build a personal project following lean principles?
To some it might sound strange to build a personal project following lean principles. I’m the developer and the client who will be signing off of designs and functionality. Why not just build the whole thing right?
True, one of the feedback loops is removed, but the others are still there and other constraints such as budget were very important to me on the project.
Is there interest?
One of the most important pieces of feedback I wanted to get early was, would anyone else find an app like this useful?
The quicker I got the core mechanic of the app out and getting feedback from it would tell me if this was a good idea for an app or not.
Budget
This was a personal project being built in my own time, so while there wasn’t a team of developers/designers/product owners to pay for, it was costing me the most precious resource, my time.
It didn’t take me too long to get the core of the app working but I felt I had to do at least a little design work before I could release the app. Trying to make it a minimum likeable product at least.
If the app recieves any interest at all, I would be happy to extend the budget (my time) on this project, but until then, I’ve set a budget, met it, and now waiting for feedback.
Holding back
Not going over budget was actually surprisingly difficult. During the initial build I had lots of ideas for extra features on the app. For example, the ability to add evidence of your practice sessions, such as images and video. I think this is a good idea, but doing that would have extended the budget to get it released. If anyone starts using the app then I can justify increasing the budget.
Another example of waiting to see if new features are needed is the ability to remove practice sessions and skills. As soon as anyone is using the app this seems like an important feature to add. However, if no one is adding and skills or practice sessions, there is no need to be able to remove them!
Feedback
I’ve already recieved some feedback on the app. Mainly that I need to learn how to promote an app without any budget!
Another piece of feedback that I got early from releasing quickly was that the icon I just generated in Android Studio isn’t the best. Not the most constructive piece of feedback in the world, but it’s a learning I can apply to this app or at least take in to my next project.
Next steps
It’s still early days in the app store but it’s not looking like Practice makes Perfect will be reaching the top of the app store anytime soon.
As such, I’m really glad that I set myself a budget, stuck to it, and got some learning from releasing. Spending more time now adding features isn’t likely to increase the take up rate of the app so it doesn’t seem wise to build those extra features yet.
The most likely next step for the app would be start trying to gain some qualitative data on how/why someone would be looking for an app like this in the app store. People who hear about the app agree it’s a good idea but now I need to understand what would convince them to download it. If you would like to try Practice makes Perfect, download it here.
If I can’t come up with a plan to increase downloads then I’m ok dropping the project where it currently is. Thanks to the lean approach not a lot of time/money has been wasted and learnings were made, so if the idea ends here, I’m not overly invested in it.