Ramping up

I now find it easier to make adjustments on my mobile app after a few weeks of starting to learn React Native.

It’s crazy to think that a month ago I was juggling between different frameworks to try to spin up mobile apps quickly.

During that time, I created an entire mobile application boilerplate for myself, a complete app, and I’m about to launch it soon.

The mobile application boilerplate is something I built because I didn’t want to redo the boring parts over and over again.

Basically, it’s like when you want to build a home: you need to pour the concrete for the foundation, you need a frame, the walls, floors, and roof. Your house also needs water pipes, electricity, a front door with a lock, and various rooms for people to live in. That’s the bare minimum you need in order to call it a house.

A boilerplate is essentially this, but for software applications. You’ve got a fully ready-made project with authentication systems (so you can click those “Sign in with Google” or “Sign in with Apple” buttons on the login screen), a database to save your users’ data, screens for onboarding (the pages you see first when opening the application—usually the first time), and a paywall (that page that shows up when the app asks you to pay).

This is the bare minimum you need to build a mobile application. You can then modify it as you wish and build on top of it the features you’re going to propose to your users.

Having a boilerplate saves you a lot of time, and since I might build other apps in the future, I feel great having it.

I spent a little bit over a week building this. It was a good exercise as it allowed me to better learn how to use this technology.

Developers usually create small to-do apps or calculators when learning a new technology.

It’s because creating those small apps lets you build enough so that you can interact with your app meaningfully while touching on parts like databases and things called “state.” I’m not going to detail what this last thing is, but essentially “state” is what makes your app feel alive.

It’s the memory of your app at any given moment—what the user has typed, what they’ve clicked, what screen they’re on, whether they’re logged in or not. If the database is like the hard drive of your app, state is more like its short-term memory or working brain: it keeps track of what’s happening right now so the app can respond instantly.

This might be a bit of a technical explanation, but I thought it’d be better if you knew that.

Anyway, there was a bit of learning to do, and I’m still learning, but I guess this is what building is:

You learn as you do.

Building apps is great for you if you’re a hands-on learner and tend to be a bit impatient. More specifically, I believe entrepreneurship and building your business is great for you if you value doing over thinking.

Sometimes, people who think too much don’t get too much done, and it’s a pity for us, because we don’t benefit from their thinking (usually they’re bad at producing), and they tend to slow us down because of their careful nature.

Personally, I find this frustrating.

So, while being cautious is great in some situations, there are others where it’s totally okay (and in fact, should be encouraged) to take risks, and risk breaking things or failing as you go.

I haven’t read any books about that, but I read somewhere that Nassim Taleb mentioned this in his book Antifragile.

I really want to read this book.

Maybe it can help me solidify my understanding of this since I’m writing purely from gut feeling.

It’s 22:00 now.

I worked all day today, got most of my checklist done, and I’m going to do another round of testing this week before launching my app.

Since I didn’t take any weekend, I’ll relax a bit tonight, and maybe tomorrow morning (though I really want to work), but I feel tired and just want to recharge a bit.

We’ve also got to plan our move since this week is the last week we’ll spend in Ho Chi Minh City before going to my girlfriend’s family farm in the south. We’ve got tons of things we must do before moving.

Pretty excited to go and lock in in the countryside.

See you tomorrow :)