Every founder talks about “focus,” but very few actually commit to it. When I built GameAssessmentPrep.com, a platform that helps job candidates prepare for HireVue’s cognitive and game-based assessments, I didn’t have the luxury of time, resources, or a team. What I did have was a clear niche and a very aggressive deadline.
It ended up taking just 3 weeks to go from idea to shipped product.
This is the story of how extreme focus + vibecoding (AI-assisted coding guided by intuition and fast iteration) made it possible — and the lessons I’d share with anyone building solo.
1. Picking a Niche So Specific It Felt Uncomfortable
When I tell people I built a training platform for HireVue game-based assessments, the answer is always the same:
“Wait... there’s a niche for that?”
Yes — and it’s massive, once you zoom in.
HireVue assessments are used by Fortune 500 companies, banks, and global employers to screen candidates. Most candidates walk in blind, stressed, and completely unprepared. That’s a real, painful, repeatable problem.
But here’s the catch:
If I had tried to build “a general job-prep platform,” I would have shipped in 3 years.
By narrowing the scope to 11 specific game types, I could design:
- focused simulations
- focused UX
- focused onboarding
- focused marketing copy
- focused SEO
Everything aligned because everything was intentionally small.
Lesson: If your niche doesn’t feel uncomfortably narrow, it’s probably too broad.
2. Vibecoding: Shipping Before I Know the Perfect Way
I’m a solo founder. I don’t have time to reinvent the wheel or design systems like a 50-engineer team. So I defaulted to what I call vibecoding:
Code guided by intuition, rapid feedback loops, and AI-assisted exploration — instead of over-planning.
My vibecoding workflow looked like this:
- Sketch the screen in my head.
- Describe it to AI and let it scaffold the boilerplate.
- Modify until it “feels right.”
- Ship. Even if imperfect.
- Improve once real users touch it.
This reduced friction at every step. I didn’t stop to think, “Should this be architected with X pattern?” I thought:
- Does it work?
- Is it fast to implement?
- Will users understand it?
That’s it.
Lesson: Perfection is a trap. Momentum is a multiplier.
3. Building Only What Mattered (and Cutting Everything Else)
Because the deadline was tight, every feature had to justify its existence.
If it didn’t directly help a candidate perform better in a HireVue-style game, it was deleted.
This meant:
- No unnecessary dashboards
- No complex gamification systems
- No social features, no messaging, no AI tutors (at first)
- No admin interface for the first week
Instead, I focused on:
🔹 A clean UI that mirrors real assessment conditions
🔹 Precise replicas of each HireVue game mechanic
🔹 Analytics users actually care about (accuracy, speed, error patterns)
🔹 UX that lowers anxiety instead of increasing it
Those core pillars generated 90 percent of the platform’s value.
Lesson: If a feature doesn’t create value today, it’s a distraction.
4. Iterating With Real Anxiety (Because Users Don’t Care About Your Code)
The most surprising insight came from user behavior:
Candidates using GAP were stressed.
Their heart rate was literally going up while playing these training games.
That told me something important:
The UX shouldn’t just teach the mechanics.
It should help users stay calm under cognitive pressure.
So I added:
- clean spacing
- predictable flows
- gentle animations
- reassuring microcopy
- immediate feedback loops
This turned GAP from “a set of minigames” into an emotional training platform.
Lesson: You're not building features — you're reducing user stress.
5. The Technical Stack (Kept Simple on Purpose)
Frontend: Next.js
Payments: Stripe
Authentication & backend logic: Supabase
Deploy: Vercel
I didn’t try to be clever. I tried to be fast.
Every time I felt tempted to add a complicated system, I asked myself:
“Will this meaningfully improve the user’s chance of passing a HireVue assessment?”
If the answer wasn’t a strong yes, it was cut.
6. Marketing the Niche (The Secret Weapon)
The beauty of a specific niche is that marketing becomes laser targeted.
SEO becomes straightforward because you're not fighting giants.
Reddit posts convert.
LinkedIn posts convert.
Even YouTube descriptions convert.
Instead of trying to “educate the whole world,” I built content around:
- “How to pass HireVue’s Flashback game”
- “Why candidates fail Spatial Pathfinder”
- “How to prepare for cognitive game-based assessments”
The niche did most of the heavy lifting.
Lesson: Specificity is free distribution.
7. What I Learned (That I Wish I Knew Earlier)
1. A tiny niche can be a huge business.
2. Vibecoding with AI dramatically compresses time to market.
3. Users don’t care how elegant your codebase is.
4. You can skip 80 percent of the work by building only what users truly need.
5. Three weeks is enough time to build something people will pay for — if you stay radically focused.
Final Thoughts
GAP didn’t succeed because I’m a genius or because I had the perfect plan.
It succeeded because:
- I chose a niche so specific that competitors ignored it
- I shipped fast before I could overthink
- I vibecoded my way through uncertainty
- I focused obsessively on solving one clear problem
If you're building something solo in 2025, the formula hasn’t changed:
Focus small. Ship fast. Let users guide you. And trust your intuition more than your architecture diagrams.
Top comments (0)