My Solo Dev Journey
Hey everyone! I’ve developed a photo-based calorie tracking app called Calwise, and I’d love for you to check it out.
Feel free to try it and share any feedback: https://calwise.fit/
I also want to share my journey with you all:
The Beginning
Late last year, less than 2 weeks before Chinese New Year, our manager suddenly called us into the conference room and announced the project was being disbanded. About 90% of the team was let go.
I had two choices: take the severance package or join a new team working on an internal communications project. Since everything happened so quickly, I decided to stay with the company.
By May this year, I’d led a small team of two others to complete the MVP of the new project. Then I got hit with another layoff notice. During my one-month handover period, HR mentioned another team was looking for people and asked if I wanted to chat with them. This time, I chose to leave and try building something on my own to test my limits.
After leaving, I took some time off, applied for unemployment benefits, and visited my family back home.
Why Calwise?
I used to be really skinny, under 50kg (110lbs). After getting into fitness, I gained weight up to 65kg (143lbs). Since I was trying to build muscle, I needed to track my protein, carbs, and fat intake. I used various food tracking apps, but it was always a hassle to search for each food item and input portions, especially with multiple ingredients in each meal.
When GPT-4 came out with image recognition capabilities, I got the idea to create an app that could recognize food and calculate calories from photos. The API was pretty expensive then, so I held off. Looking back, I wish I’d started sooner.
Development Phase
As a client-side engineer, I had to learn backend and web development to build a complete product.
I launched the MVP in early September while learning on the go. The app was pretty basic then — just photo-based food logging with a rough UI — so I decided to keep improving it before promoting it.
Later, I added user onboarding, personalized meal plans based on body stats and goals, and completely revamped the UI. Now I’d say it’s at least “decent.”
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There was a small hiccup in mid-October when Azure suddenly announced they wouldn’t serve individual developers from mainland China. Even though my app wasn’t launching in mainland China, Azure wouldn’t budge after I tried explaining. I had to switch to another AI service provider, which delayed things a bit.
Finally launched the new version on November 1st.
Reflections
Self-Discipline
Solo development requires serious self-discipline, which I honestly struggled with (lol). Working from home, I kept wanting to take breaks, and my productivity was lower than at the office. Setting a deadline helped — nothing motivates like a deadline!
One-Person Company
At a company, you get product wireframes and UI designs handed to you — you just code the logic, which is super efficient.
Now I’m juggling product, UI, and code all by myself. I keep stopping to second-guess everything: “Does this look good?” “Should this button go here?” It definitely slows things down.
Marketing
Building the product wasn’t too hard for me, but marketing is totally new territory. I’m planning to post on TikTok, Reddit, and Instagram, and learn about SEO.
And finally, I hope this app can help you with your fitness goals, whether you’re cutting fat or building muscle! 💪
