Building a web and mobile app with Adalo

What is it:

Habit building app for kids

Maker Insight:

How easy Dorik is to setup and understood the whole lifestyle of making apps

What did I learn:

1. Using Adalo previewer. How do you have a beta while using Adalo? Something new I learned that I really liked is an easy way to host a beta site with Adalo. For this app you can see the preview here: https://previewer.adalo.com/6adfba52-3db4-4f38-8369-3c10b61dc1d8

What's super helpful is it is a PWA available while you build out the native mobile app. Vijay had not submitted the product to the app store yet, because he is in beta. This allows a great amount of flexibility needed so that during beta, many changes can be made to the app before submitting to the app store.

2. Launch a landing page with Dorik, create a waitlist to gather interest. One of the most important steps in launching, is actually doing several small launches. One of those ways is by standing up a landing page to collect email sign ups for a waitlist. This accomplishes two things. It casts a wide net to capture interest while you build it out. Secondly, you can start letting people in slowly to get feedback and validation. The last thing you want to happen is release everything suddenly without taking the time to analyze user feedback and improve the product. This also helps you iteratively make your product.

3. Simplicity is key. Product design. As a product manager at a major sports league digital team that generates millions of users and views per week, focus is essential. There is only so much space at the top of a website or within an app that your user is going to see. It is insanely hard to focus. One might think that may be easier when you are a solo Maker of your side project. But ironically it is not. In fact it might be harder. Because how are you going to hold yourself accountable and judge what is just the right amount of text, images or size of your product? It is a very hard thing to do.

My recommendation is start a small feedback loop. Generally you don't need more than 5 folks for this. This very small focus group will help you stay on track or call out things that may not make sense.

Lastly, I would recommend to segmentize your product. If you have a vision for that thing you are making and you want it to do 3 things. Break it down into smaller segments. Each segment will be it's own product and launch. So in the beginning because you are making a side project, your time is extra limited, you must be even more micro focused. 90% of the Makers I see launch things, including myself launch too big. We have this notion that we see finished products and think thats the starting point. When in fact, we usually never see their starting points. Very rarely do we see their first launch. So we go down the wrong path of building too big at first to match a finished product and we stall, then fail.

Vijay does a fantastic job of not doing that. He is an exception to the norm and something that I believe is a foundational principle to follow.

4. Using Adalo - two fantastic Maker breakdowns that go in depth using Adalo... I interviewed these Makers and asked them about the positives and negatives about using Adalo.
1. https://sideprojectstack.com/glide-compared-to-adalo/
2. https://sideprojectstack.com/making-an-app-with-adalo/