u/DeadGossip

I’m 4 days away from launching the beta for my app, Dead Gossip, and honestly… I expected to feel more stressed than proud.

Instead, I keep thinking about the fact that 60 days ago this thing didn’t exist. Now it does.

I had developers review the code and tell me it was solid. I built the entire thing for about $100 out of pocket plus a lot of late nights and stubbornness. Even if it completely flops, I still made something I imagined in my head actually exist in the world.

That feels kind of insane.

The funny part is the app solves a problem I personally already pay for. If nobody else ever touches it, I can still cancel my $40/month Ancestry subscription and break even in a few months.

Best case? Maybe this turns into something bigger.

Worst case? I learned a ton, built a portfolio project, proved I could do it, and now I move onto the next idea with way more confidence than I had 2 months ago.

What’s wild to me is realizing it would take around 3,000 users on my cheapest plan for me to quit the daily grind and do this full time.

At the same time, 3,000 people on the internet suddenly feels both massive and strangely attainable.

If you’ve ever built something yourself, how many users/customers would it take to change your life?

So serious question, I've been contemplating a lot. I've been calling what I'm doing vibe coding because I don't have technical schooling, but when I looked it up it seems it means just not really trying to understand the code. Blindly trusting what its doing. That's not really what I've been doing.

I make sure I can understand it even if I can't read every line of code. I test the shit out of it. I make it give me weekly analysis on the code looking for duplicates, dead code, hard coded values that should be config, etc.

Is it still vibe coding? Are other people who vibe code not really testing or telling it how to make the pieces work together?

Everyday the list gets longer of what a perfect platform would be. I have mostly used Ancestry and family search so my experience is limited. They just feel old and overwhelming to navigate.

Also like is being connected to all trees a blessing or a curse. For every gem I find, I also spend a ton of time clearing through duplicates. I also just made the mistake of accepting too much garbage early on 😭

Please tell me im not alone!

30 days in and I just opened my waitlist.

I’ve got about 4 weeks before I let test users loose, so I figured it’s time to stop building in silence and actually talk about what I’m doing.

Everyone talks about building the product. Nobody really talks about everything after you have something working:

Terms of service
Privacy policy
Cookie stuff
LLC, DBA, trademark
Business bank account

That part nearly took me out this week.

At the same time, I started focusing way more on getting plugged into communities instead of just building alone. I’ve been writing on Substack for a year mostly into the void, but recently started actually engaging with people in genealogy. Applied to Daughters of the American Revolution, joined Reddit (which I somehow missed until now), and started talking to other builders.

That’s where the real value came from.
A lot of my best features came directly from problems people were venting about.

Now it’s just: build, listen, repeat until June.

Day 30
Hours in: 68
API costs: $26.63

If you’ve launched something recently, what hit you harder: building the product or everything around it?

If you’re into genealogy and want to test it early, I’ve got a waitlist open. Happy to share the link if there’s interest.

I am looking for copies of my great grandmother's marriage record. She married in Chanute, Neosha, Kansas in 1917. So far all I can find are newspaper articles about it, but I am having a very difficult time finding anything recorded, marriages, births etc. Anyone have tips or tricks or know of some good free resources. I checked the usual suspects FamilySearch & Ancestry. Appreciate any assistance!