From Ground Zero: Building a Tech Startup From Scratch
So, are you ever bored when you’re at home with nothing to do?
Well, I don’t know about you, but I get bored a lot.
Although I have anime, video game, and WWE interests to pass the time when it’s not work hours, sometimes I feel like I should (and could) put my software engineering skills to better use by building something cool in my free time; something that is aligned with the things that I’m interested in.
In doing so, I could become a better software engineer, build something cool for those who like the same things I like, and heck, maybe make some money on the side and have fun.
Because as start-up junkies, we realize that a full-time job with a stable paycheck isn’t fulfilling enough, right?
And that’s what this From Ground Zero publication would be all about.
I want to build an online Anime and Manga Marketplace where people can easily buy and sell merchandise from their local shops (or from other users around the world), and also discuss anything anime/manga related with other users.
In doing so, working on this app would not only give me a regular place to look for anime merchandise, but also allow me to teach junior software engineers how to build a large-scale application from scratch; a project where one would gain a considerable amount of knowledge and experience that is necessary for working in a corporate or start-up job.
The marketplace idea stems from an inconvenience I had a few months ago. I was looking for a case for my new iPhone 6 Plus, but had to search all across the web to find what I wanted (Amazon, eBay, other websites). Though this is typically an “issue” that online buyers would usually experience anyways, why not have a desktop and mobile website dedicated to Anime/Manga merchandise that doesn’t have an outdated design, and one that I could call mine?
Though there’re a lot of websites that have already done this, I noticed that their designs are either not mobile-optimized, or that they are so outdated that it makes it more difficult than it needs to be for users to find what they’re looking for. Also, these websites aren’t focused on building a shopping experience where small businesses could profit from local customers who prefer online shopping.
From Ground Zero is a Medium publication that will contain a series of stories in which I will discuss my experience and share my technical expertise in building this marketplace.
If you are interested in reading about my experiences, or learning how to build and launch a web application from scratch, be sure to recommend this article to your followers and follow my From Ground Zero publication!
As a side note, I’m not going into this project full-time; I have a full-time job that I’m very committed to, but I do tend to have free time, which I would be able to use to commit to this project.
In the next article, I will most likely discuss the entire tech stack that I plan on using; unless I think of some background information that I didn’t talk about already :).
Got any questions? Tweet me @JourdanB21!
Bio: I’m a back-end engineer for 99Gamers and the TYDY iOS app, where I build and ship features from scratch. I previously a virtual assistant to Nir Eyal, the author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. In my spare time, I enjoy nerdy things like anime, video games, WWE, and basketball!
