I built a tool USELESS to most

#startup #marketing #software #developer

Hello everyone.

Let me start directly. I am a software engineer, mostly working from home and sitting way too long in front of my MacBook. In my last job, I led a team. I felt I should take responsibility for everything and worked extremely hard to make everyone happy. The teammates were happy, the bosses were happy with my job.

But I forgot about myself.

I was often working overtime, still at my desk at 1 am trying to make things perfect. I felt I had to do it because I was the leader. Eventually, I was extremely stressed and knew I had to change my life to make myself better. I quit that job to start a new journey: creating software that could help someone just like me.

So I created a desktop pet for Mac called NotiSprite. I feel it gives me the emotional support I need during my time in front of the screen. It is a cute selection of sprites that run on your desktop across multiple monitors. It gives me healthy reminders that it is time for a break or a meeting, and it gives me a daily quote to cheer me up. Anyway, it works for me at least.

I felt it was a great idea to push it to the public. I launched on Product Hunt, posted on Reddit, and tried to market NotiSprite on different platforms. I even presented it to my friends so they could use it freely.

The results are quite different from what I felt.

I love my project, but reactions from people are different. Mostly they think it is just a toy, not a productivity tool. It is really hard to change people's mindset about desktop companions. They always think it will be distracting! But I implemented so many configurations, like moving modes, staying in a certain corner, or changing the size, specifically because I don't want to be distracted either. I am using it every single day.

Anyway, I think I am falling down to the fact that all creators love their own projects, but not everyone else will like them. I might have created something useless to most but useful to me.

I still want to share this with you though. You are developers same as me, working so hard and sitting so long. Maybe you also need that emotional support from a cute pet. That is why I am posting here. I am looking for my kind of people.

If you want to try it, there is a free sprite called Noti Peach. My wife created it and I really like it. It is absolutely free to use.