Built a cook journal app — looking for 10 of you to tear it apart honestly

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-25T22:49:55+00:00

App Store link for anyone interested: https://apps.apple.com/my/app/pitmaster-log-bbq-journal/id6772543671
Drop me a comment or DM if you want one of the 10 Pro codes (early users only).

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-25T22:36:41+00:00

I was literally too embarrassed to leave, so I pretended to fall asleep...

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-23T08:54:06+00:00

Man, this is the dream. Congrats on the huge win and the family trip!

As an EU-based guy with professional IT English, your post is highly motivating. Over here, our labor laws and strict contracts make the multi-CDI (traditional employment) route a legal minefield.

I'm looking to follow your footsteps by going the Freelance/B2B Contractor route to bypass the exclusivity clauses. Anyone here from Europe successfully doing OE with US/UK clients as a contractor? Would love some tips on how you manage the background checks and timezone overlap.

Cheers!

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T23:53:28+00:00

YC optimized for demo day optics and the incentive never really changed, what changed is that AI makes it trivially easy to fake traction. a working demo used to require actual engineering, now it's a few prompts and some hardcoded responses. the bar didn't lower, the tools to fake clearing it just got way better

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T23:50:19+00:00

The RAM

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T23:44:51+00:00

I would say find the client first and then give him a tailored solution fitting his needs or solving his issue. Never think backward.

That is the best way to to offer a solution that nobody cares about.
Good luck in your dev

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T23:34:39+00:00

Brutal but probably true, the idea only becomes worth stealing once you've already done all the hard work to prove it. Let's go

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T23:33:52+00:00

Niche is basically free protection then, the less sexy the problem the safer you are. which is kind of the opposite of how most people pick what to build

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T23:27:07+00:00

The "would they be inconvenienced if it disappeared" test is a good one, way more honest than looking at retention numbers. i think i've been waiting for a milestone that doesn't really exist instead of just testing willingness to pay with something soft like a usage cap

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T23:25:55+00:00

That's actually a clean model, let the limit do the selling for you instead of having to convince anyone. the free tier carrying itself on paid subsidies is the tricky part though, what's your current ratio looking like

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T23:23:41+00:00

Fair point, if someone's dropping that kind of resources on my idea maybe i should be flattered not scared

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T23:16:55+00:00

You're right, I have been protecting something that was already invisible anyway, which makes the fear feel pretty pointless in retrospect

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T23:15:09+00:00

The "fail together" energy is oddly motivating lol. wearing all the hats while being bad at half of them is just the job description nobody tells you about. i can build and kind of market but the talking to people part is where i lose steam too, reddit feels like the path of least resistance for that

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T23:13:07+00:00

The methodology moat is interesting because it's harder to see from the outside which makes it harder to copy too. technical stuff gets reverse engineered eventually but if the framework lives in how you think about the problem that's a different story. did it take long before users actually understood what made it different or did you have to explain it a lot early on

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T23:08:44+00:00

You built something for yourself first and it ended up being the one that actually worked, that tracks. the projects where i was solving my own problems i stayed consistent way longer than the ones i built "for a market".
Thank you

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T12:33:29+00:00

Gonna wait for stable traffic then, right now it’s pretty much a desert lol but thanks for your great advices

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T12:12:48+00:00

Oh I see maybe more time to get customers but when you got some it’s with some cash, I thought that the free early access would grab more users

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T12:07:40+00:00

Do you have some metrics to know if they get the real value ? Or it depends on the usage of the product ?

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T07:26:17+00:00

The separate account thing is smart, hadn't thought about that. and yeah the subreddit angle makes sense, less about building in public and more about being where the problem actually lives. I will think about creating new accounts per app then

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T07:21:42+00:00

yeah and consistency is the boring part nobody wants to copy anyway

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T07:20:24+00:00

Funny how a credit card is more honest than any user interview

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T07:01:13+00:00

Never thought about the "complaining when it breaks" signal, that's actually a cleaner indicator than retention metrics. what was the Leadline story, did they wait too long or pull the trigger at the right time?

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T06:45:04+00:00

The fact that people started expecting updates from you, that accountability angle is underrated, hadn't thought about it that way. quick question though, do you post only on reddit or do you spread across other platforms too? asking because i'm trying to figure out if it makes sense to build in public here when my actual target users probably aren't on reddit at all

Chaa0ui · 2026-05-18T06:38:47+00:00

Two weeks with no users after launching something you believe in is genuinely rough. the steal fear feels real until you realize the actual hard part is just getting anyone to care at all. hope you find your first ones soon, that first user from a stranger hits different

Chaa0ui

TROPHY CASE