Hey all,
This project has been a journey of pain and lessons.
So before we start. What the heck is Impresssive?
You can find the final product at impresssive.co.
Impresssive is a web app that allows anyone (no coding experience needed) to make their own landing site experience. There are 12 components ranging from links, features, call to actions, and etc. It is all free and you can build a experience real fast.
You may realize, why not use squarespace? Well this is free! No cost and I believe that this serves a different purpose than a squarespace site. Impresssive is here to augment your personal site, or be a quick and easy landing site creator for your next weekend hack. It can work as a resume, a collection of your best work, or a product FAQ.
You get to make it, we supply the tools to do so.
Please, do try it out and give me all the feedback. It is rough on the edges but I’m happy to here your suggestions.
How was building it?
Sigh……………………
It was hard. Really hard.
And not because of technical limits or lack of knowledge. It was all logistics.
I’ll tell you later.
I want to start from the beginning.
The Great Idea
Impresssive.co started as a way different idea from what it is today. It was solely focused as a resume platform. It was meant to be a blogging platform that focuses on your thoughts and works. I wanted to take those short `About Me` pages on personal sites and give them a place to thrive.
This concept led to mock ups…
With these mockups, I felt like I was onto something super amazing… I rushed to development. Pulled out the terminal and started to crank away.
Let’s Go
5 days. 4–6 hours of sleep a day. Endless development. Those days were a blur. Features were developed by the hour. The backend was also coming together. The app was coming together and for the most part I felt great.
But then, on day 5, I had a moment of crisis.
What’s different about impresssive compared to a traditional blog?
I soul searched for an answer and could not find one. I lost a ton of morale and was unsure if I wanted to move on.
I needed to pivot.
And here came the current version of Impresssive.
***pause***
To add context I made this app after my project Pigeon. You can check out my blog here:
In short, I made a pivot there too, similar to this project. And I wrote to myself to not make such a preventable pivot again.
Sigh…. It happened
***unpause***
I knew I was behind. I spent a week on a concept that I had to throw away and I was dying from overworking myself. I also had tons of other stuff I had to work on and my Christmas break was coming to an end.
Even with all these pressures, I made the pivot.
Hustle, hustle, hustle
The first day on pivot was very optimistic. I loved the new design and the new concepts. Then, the slog of work took my toll. I started to check off features one after another to deliver the app. I knew I was behind.
I was so rushed to deliver that I skilled mocking up. (Mistake)
I only got the basics done when school started. But I still needed to get the final details done.
The last mile
I’m writing this recovering from the ‘last mile’. I had ton of small but important features I had to do. I would finish one and realize there was 5 more to make. Ahhhhhhh… everyday I worked was a day behind. I was barely holding onto any morale. But I didn’t want to fail on delivery. That was a priority.
Check out 3031.io to see why.
Eventually, I delivered the app. Yay. I’m legit relieved that I finished.
To be honest, I’m not 100% proud of my work, but I’m 100% proud I finished.
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
— Henry Ford
I needed to fail this project. This project taught me so much. I now realize the importance of the logistics and planning for any project. I can not stress how important to have a good direction and attack plan. I was struggling to deliver because I can’t project the correct schedule to finish the project. Since it was a personal project, every day delayed took a toll on my sanity. Also, I came off the relative success of my previous project Pigeon.
Failing this project told me where to improve on. Now, recovering from this ordeal, I have a clear path to where I need to work on. I hope to take the mistakes I made from impresssive and bring it forward to my future projects.
Many thanks for following my story and hopefully you learned something from my experiences.
-David Sun
