I’m excited to tell you about Bitacorizky, my side project that turned into a space for writing and recalling experiences.
At the heart of Bitacorizky is my personal need for a space where I can write, reflect on my emotions over time, and remember where I was when things happened. The idea arose from frustration and the inability to find a simple platform for doing so.
I started with a simple idea, a mockup in Excalidraw with the screens I would need to implement this project.
Moving a bit more into the technical side, I took advantage of Next.js 14 and its power of Client-side and Server-side Rendering with Client and Server Components to achieve a responsive, lightweight, and fast page.
I created styled components using Tailwind and shadcn to streamline development and give it a minimalist and elegant look.
All of this is hosted on Vercel, my great companion in daily work, allowing me to link my GitHub repositories and automate deployments by branches.
I created my own libraries to upload and download images, used TipTap to enable users to write, and employed a custom method to save what’s written in the database and receive it in a personalized format to simplify my work.
On the backend side, I used this project to learn even more about Firebase and its tools, such as Authentication for login management and the use of providers like Google or Facebook, Firestore Database to host what people are writing, and the use of Storage to store uploaded images.
The journey had its challenges, and every step has been a lesson in perseverance and development. From choosing technologies to deployment, including components and libraries that would help me achieve a key goal: launch an MVP, see how users interact with it, and then add extra features to make Bitacorizky a more comprehensive project.
Lessons learned: perseverance, documentation, and organized folders are your best friends on this journey. Perseverance to code during non-working hours or weekends, documentation to detail the steps I was taking and not lose important information (because you never know when you’ll pick up the work again and iterate on it), and organized folders to keep the code clean, as well as imports and dependencies.
With all of this completed, I’ve learned something very important, and I wanted to share it with you: don’t wait for the million-dollar idea, and don’t underestimate the power of personal projects! Bitacorizky started as a solution to a personal need and evolved. It was a long but necessary journey. That journey left me with significant learnings and allowed me to meet people who provided value and key feedback to make the most of this simple idea.
So, what are you waiting for? Take a look at Bitacorizky and start writing your own digital stories.
