Meet Spuddy 🥔

Paul — Sun, 14 Sep 2025 10:29:33 +0000

What's Spuddy?

Ever tried checking off items on a shopping list app, while juggling groceries and a phone?

Spuddy, is a shopping list app that I built two years ago, out of frustration with the user experience of other shopping list apps.

I built it to be easy to use - everything is reachable with one hand, and checking off is a simple swipe to the left or right.

The technology behind it, is also not traditional, as it's a Progressive Web App (PWA), with real-time sync, so you can share your shopping list with your family, and everyone can see updates in real-time.

The first `#buildinpublic` project

Spuddy will be my first #buildinpublic project.

Even though I built Spuddy two years ago, I never really shared it publicly.
That was, because it was aimed at addressing my own needs, and I didn't think that anyone else would be interested in it.

However, now that I am trying to be more open about my projects, and share my journey of building things in public - Spuddy will be my first #buildinpublic project.

I think that it is fairly poetic, that a shopping list app, will be the first project that I will be sharing publicly.
As for most frontend engineers, a shopping (todo) list app is the first project that they ever build.

From side project to product

Spuddy already exists, so why rebuild it? I mean, I can just share the code, open up the domain, and be done with it, right?

As I wrote last week, in my first post "My Internet Goal (The Commitment)", I don't want to just open source my projects.
I want to build them into products, and to learn what a "product" is.

To transform my tiny Spuddy into an actual product, I will have to implement these things:

A Landing Page

One of the first things that anyone should think about, when building a product, is marketing!
And the most important first step in marketing your product, is to have a landing page.

This landing page should explain what Spuddy is, and why you should use it.

Miscellaneous Pages

Since this is a product, where I am allowing the user to input data, I will also need a couple other pages:

Privacy Policy
Cookie Policy
Terms of Service
Contacts

Authentication & Authorisation

This is obvious, but currently anyone can do anything in Spuddy :)

Product Analytics

It might be a complete waste of time to work on this, as I don't know if anyone will ever use Spuddy.

However, I want to learn how to build in product analytics, so it's easy to implement in future projects.

Pricing & Subscriptions

Similar to product analytics, this might be a complete waste of time, if no one ever uses Spuddy.

However, I want to learn how to build a pricing & subscription model, so I can implement it in future projects.
If I do ever get users, then I will have to somehow pay for the hosting costs, as real-time sync is not free.

UI / UX Improvements

Since Spuddy was built just to serve my own needs, I added random features, like the recipe screen.
Without really thinking about the overall user experience, and letting these features sit in the oven long enough to finish baking.

I want to take a step back, and think about the overall user experience, and how I can improve it.
For this Minimal Viable Product (MVP), I want to focus on the core experience of a shopping list app, and make it feel as great as possible.

Technology

The real-time sync of Spuddy is currently powered by a manual deployment of y-websocket-server on Fly.io.
It's annoying to manage, as y-websocket-server depends on a seldom used DB - leveldb, which doesn't have much tooling around it.
Moreover, as this is YJS, and I am using React, I had to roll my own hooks & integration from React to YJS - all of it is fairly ugly code.

For this new version of Spuddy, I want to switch to InstantDB as the backend.
It not only provides a hosted solution, but also has first class support for React.
This will make it much easier to maintain, and I can focus on building the product, rather than the infrastructure.

NOTE: InstantDB is open-source, and can be self-hosted.
I will likely be exploring this option, post-launch, if I ever get users.

What's next?

Next, I will be setting up the boilerplate for the new version of Spuddy, with the technology changes mentioned above.
It will be open sourced from the get-go, and I will share this as part of a follow-up post.

Then, I will start working on the design of the application - both the UI and UX.
I usually just start with coding, but this time I want to take a step back, and think about the overall experience.
I think this will also be a good opportunity to share my design thoughts, and get feedback from you, the reader.

My internet goal

Paul — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 14:32:00 +0000

A life of creation

I am sure I am not the only one who has seen dozens of videos, read blogs and listened to podcasts about successful indie-preneurs that created it. Engineers, such as Peter Levels & Danny Postma, or even a Photographer - Dani Connor.

You might ask - Well, what have they created, that's so interesting?

I am not writing about the business or some project, that they managed to create - these get plenty of highlights as is.
I am writing about their lives. Each of these, and more, individuals have managed to create a life, that allows them to live from their own skills & creativity.

This is completely different from my life, where I am living off my current 9-5, 40 hour work week, company.

The anxiety of growth

Something that I have been feeling more and more over my Software Engineer career, is this anxiety, that I always must perform.

You get into a meeting with someone, and they expect you to solve their issue, in the way that pleases them.
You get a assigned a project, where even though your manager says it is okay to fail, you know that they and everyone around wants this project to be an absolute success.
You get a promotion into a new role, and now you find time to both do more and learn new skills with the same time you had before.

This is okay. Large businesses need to constantly grow into even larger businesses.

But that's not okay for me. I don't want to be this optimised machine that is capable of conforming to every new person and decision made by someone on the top floor.

Who am I

I am a Software Engineer with over 7 years of experience in the industry, primarily focused on Frontend.

Who am I (actually)

I am just a guy writing this from my home office in Lithuania, Vilnius:

My favourite dish is Pasta Carbonara (no cream)
One of my favourite movies is The Batman (2022)
I've taken up some basic woodworking as a hobby, hopefully I can share something on this

Lastly, I live in a family of four: a gorgeous & smart fiance, a dog, and two cats.

The Commitment

Internet, I am committing to spending the next year, working towards generating 2,000 € monthly passive income.
I will be doing this together with my 9-5 job.

How?

I am not sure yet, but here are my thoughts:

I have seldom done open source, and I want to give back to the community that helped me build my skills.
I have never done freelance, and I think that's valuable as you get exposed to many different products.
I have never released a paid product of my own, and I don't understand how the whole complex process works.

I need more time to convert these thoughts into actual values that I can live by, and I think that will happen over time.
However, I can promise that I will share every step of this journey, whatever it is with you,

Hopefully, I will also get better at blogging, so these posts are less rough.

DEV Community: Paul