10 Things I Learned Building a Next.js App With No Experience

Matt — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 09:09:56 +0000

Hey all. 👋

6 weeks ago, I started work on my first ever full stack project - Createthat.ai.

It's an AI-powered search engine that provides royalty-free assets for video creators.

Other than running a few basic python scripts, and learning Matlab at Uni, I started with precisely zero next.js experience.

On the 7th of Nov, exactly 1 month after starting, Createthat launched on ProductHunt.

Currently, I have zero paying customers. 🙂

In no particular order, here's the 10 things I learned along the way.

If you're thinking about diving into a full-stack project, hopefully there's some value in here.

1. AI is FAR from perfect (despite the hype)

Despite the hype around AI taking everyone's job, it's still a LONG way off.

I'm not the dumbest guy in the world (definitely not the smartest either), and there's been countless times where I've been completely stuck, and AI was no help.

Google, official documentation, and forums like this are still your friend.

2. I should have learned some fundamentals first

I dove head first into this.

In hindsight sitting down for 2 or 3 days first and learning some next.js fundamentals would have saved me heaps of time later.

Do a quick YouTube course first, learn the fundamentals, it's free. 😊

3. Stripe endpoints are a mind f**k

Maybe it was just me, but building the stripe endpoint and user-credits system was overall the longest and most difficult process of anything on the site.

If you're using stripe, consider starting simple and avoid credits systems if you can!

4. Web scraping is incredibly easy to do with AI

So, I didn't really want all the media to be insta-scraped from my site after I spent weeks putting it all together.

After looking into how easy it can be done with a simple python script, all I can say is, protect your sh*t!

Something to keep in mind.

5. Product Hunt launch traffic is low quality

I see so many people building up to their Product Hunt launch.

It's an awesome milestone, but manage your expectations.

Also, consider removing your contact details from your website while launching on Product Hunt unless you want an inbox full of spam.

Product Hunt can be an awesome way to start, but it shouldn't be your only strategy.

6. Tailwind is Awesome

Tailwind is awesome!? Why does everyone hate on it?

That is all. 🤣

7. You Learn the Most When Something Breaks

It's easy to copy/paste AI code all day. But when something breaks? That's when the fun begins.

If you ever find yourself fully stuck, remember you're probably learning more in that situation than any other time.

That's the value I've found in bugs.

8. Do not underestimate the importance of marketing

It's easy to think your idea is the best idea in the world, and maybe it is, but without marketing no one will know your app exists.

Some people just have awesome ideas and/or get lucky when launching on PH or X. I think most of us though, won't be so lucky.

Be prepared to put your marketing hat on.

9. There's an almost 100% chance you'll spend 1 day fixing something that would take an experienced dev 1 minute

The day I started, I spent over 4 hours trying to display an image on the main page.tsx.

The problem was app/public/my-image.png

Can you spot the issue?

If you don't know you don't know, and AI can't help in these cases... which leads me to my final point.

10. Love hate relationship with AI

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE AI.

There's no way in the world I could have gone from zero to a working site like this in 4-5 weeks.

AI is 100% to thank for that.

The problem is, when you're inexperienced, you can't tell if AI is giving you good advice or sending you down a rabbit hole.

If you're not careful, AI can waste as many of your hours as it saves.

Final Thoughts

Well thanks for reading my brain dump! I hope someone out there gets value from this. 🤝

Ps. You can try the app I built for free. All I ask if you give me some feedback via email or right here. 🙏

Talk soon,
-Matt

DEV Community: Matt