So if you'd like to change one thing on your last sprint? what would you change? #buildinpublic #saas #retrospective

This is a compilation thread breaking down a hobby project I recently completed for personal use.

I like India Pale Ales (IPAs) and wanted to keep a review log of the ones I'd triedm so I built a software tool to help me do so.

#buildinpublic #retrospective

Finally, here are a couple of screenshots of the web app in mobile form, and a link to the site itself:

inpursuitofamber.com

I'd love to hear anyone's feedback and if anyone has any questions, just fire them in here on Twitter.

#buildinpublic #retrospective

And that just about wraps up this retrospective of how I built a fully functioning review site with both web & mobile apps in a few days without spending a penny.

All that's left to do is show some screenshots, starting with the mobile app:

#buildinpublic #retrospective

To hook GraphQL to the same back end spreadsheet, I used the gatsby-source-google-spreadsheets npm package. Once I had plugged in the right env vars and enabled permissions on the Google sheet, this worked right away.

npmjs.com/package/gatsby…

#buildinpublic #retrospective

Glide works with GoogleSheets as a data source, and you can auto-generate web and mobile UIs by pointing to a spreadsheet. Great CRUD capabilities out-of-the-box.

Anyone else tried Glide?

glideapps.com

#buildinpublic #retrospective

For a no code tool with UI capabilities, I opted for GlideApps. Given I was most likely to be sitting on the sofa sampling while reviewing IPAs, I figured the primary form of input would be a mobile app.

Anyone used them?

glideapps.com

#buildinpublic #retrospective

I want to be a little less ignorant of no-code tools that are out in the market. I've used Airtable in the past, but wanted to try something a little different, with more UI capabilities. Tried a couple, nothing fitted well.

#buildinpublic #retrospective

Ok, so I looked into GraphQL for querying data sources and figured I'd like to have more of a play around with it.

Before I can commit to GraphQL however, I need to select a data source that I can easily write to, as well as access using GraphQL

#buildinpublic #retrospective

With my IPA review site, content can be updated with every new review, so using markdown files is not a practical solution, especially with structured data. Instead, I opted for a datasource that I can update & generate from, for each new review.

#buildinpublic #retrospective

So now that I've opted for Gatsby again & my HTML/CSS skills just aren't up to the task, I thought it best to build this out using one of the _many_ free templates available.

I opted for the Crafty theme from @Simplecodehq
github.com/simplecode-io/…

#buildinpublic #retrospective

I decided to build my IPA review site as a static site as I wanted to explore static site generators a little further (I had ported my freelance company & personal blog sites to static sites using Gatsby).

gatsbyjs.com @gatsbyjs

#buildinpublic #retrospective

I opted to build a niche site dedicated to reviewing IPAs. Not my typical SaaS output but this was simply to get me back in the groove. I became interested in IPAs a couple of years ago & had started exploring ales from different local breweries...

#buildinpublic #retrospective

When I was ready to create again I thought hard re. what I would enjoy doing. This is important.

My issue is a bad mix of consistency & self-criticism, resulting it it taking an age to push out anything.

Anyone else the same?

#buildinpublic #retrospective

When I returned from burnout, I decided that I would only come back to building for enjoyment, not to sweat it too much, and see where that takes me. I've resolved to build stuff I like/want. If something takes off, great, if not, so be it.

#buildinpublic #retrospective

I recently wrote about how I burned out around 2 years ago. It wasn’t related to the pandemic, but a number of factors meant that I decided to step away from building any software in my spare time (for a while).

indiehackers.com/post/getting-b…

#buildinpublic #retrospective