Day 0 - The beginning

The start of something great (or massive failure in public)

TLDR; An entrepreneurial-minded software engineer who worked for a YC startup, wants to build another expense tracker app while documenting his journey.

What’s up?

As a solo founder, I’m going to build an expense tracker app that helps myself and others to be more mindful with our spendings. And I’ll be building in public, documenting my wins and losses + hard-earned learnings here and on my Twitter, on a weekly basis, at least.

Who am I?

I’m Kaiden, a 29 yr old software developer from Macau with 6+ years of experience, with my past few years working remotely for startups in the US, including a YC startup.

I’ve started a startup community in Macau that’s still going strong after 4 years

I had a failed startup attempt right out of college, but which I’ve learnt a lot and confirmed my passion in building great products.

I’m a huge geek for theories on startups, product-building, UI/UX, marketing, psychology, etc.

Why now?

Since my failed startup attempt right out of college, I was burnt psychologically and worked as an employee since then. I was waiting for the “perfect moment” where I’m perfectly trained in coding / marketing / sales / etc., have met the perfect cofounder, came up with the perfect idea, got funded handsomely… and so on. Then I’m now almost 30 and realized there’s just no “perfect moment”, and that the best way to learn how to do something is by doing it.

Why another expense tracker?

“The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It's to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself.” - Paul Graham, How to get startup ideas

Recently I was looking to start tracking my expenses and budget, because I’ve realized that I often spend mindlessly on unimportant things that I regret later. And I couldn’t find a good enough app for my own use. Thus I guess if I can create a great expense tracker that helps myself spend more mindfully, it might help others too.

Why building in public?

Aside from the “marketing benefits” I’ve heard others mentioning, I felt like this is just the more fun path to build a product rather than building in stealth mode alone. Being remote for years is lonely enough work-wise. Now imagine building a product in stealth mode as a solo founder + being remote. Not fun. Moreover, I hope my shared successes and failures inspire other builders out there, even just by a bit.

Why going solo?

After years of cooperating with numerous great people, while I genuinely enjoy a lot of those journeys, I just couldn’t fully express my creative desire to build out things exactly the way I wanted to, so I want this project to be my own little creative canvas too.

What’s next?

“Every man has two lives, and the second starts when he realizes he has just one” - Confucius

Inspired by the quote above, I’m excited to get started : )

I’ll start by coming up an initial prototype with Google Sheets or something else (Tried Notion but it didn’t work well), test the system out myself first, then move on to UI/UX designs.

Or follow me on Twitter @kaidenio

Stay tuned : )

Best,
Kaiden

Next post - Day 7 - Started designing UI/UX