Week 3: From 0 to 30 Developers (Building in Public)

Three weeks ago, on October 15th, I hit publish on Liquidcode v2.

After months of pivoting (read about that journey), I finally had something I believed in. A platform where frontend developers compete 1v1, the community votes, and your rank actually means something.

I announced it on Dev.to and then... I waited.

The Launch: Excitement Meets Terror

You know that feeling when you ship something? Equal parts pride and panic?

Pride because holy shit, I actually finished something. As developers, we start a million projects. We finish maybe three. This was one of the three.

Panic because what if it's trash? What if nobody cares? What if I spent months building something the world doesn't want?

The first two days were brutal. I kept opening the app, scrolling through it like a user would, then closing it. Refresh analytics. Check Dev.to views. Refresh again. Nothing.

Every two minutes, I was back in Google Analytics. Obsessively. Pathetically.

Then on day 3, someone signed up.

The first user. Not a friend. Not a test account. A real person who saw the post, read it, and thought "yeah, I want to sign up."

That feeling? Unmatched.

But here's the thing - that first user only signed up because there was something to see.

Step 1: Creating Content (You Can't Launch Empty)

You can't launch a platform with zero content. Users need to see what they're signing up for. So before going live, I created 4 starter challenges:

Reinvent Your First Program - Reimagine "Hello, World!" but make it yours. No boring printf("hello, world!") allowed.

Show Your Best Project/Repo - Straightforward. Got something you're proud of? Show it off.

Aim & Shoot Tic Tac Toe - A twist on the classic game. Aim and shoot your Xs or Os into the grid.

Pomodoro - The classic productivity timer. One of those beginner apps everyone builds at some point.

Then I got some friends to help create example solutions. We needed to show people what "good" looks like. Check out some of the results:

• 3D Hello World - someone went full 3D rendering for a hello world
• Scrambling Hello World - creative text animations
• Aim & Shoot Tic Tac Toe - the shooting mechanic actually works

You can see more at Best Solutions.

Step 2: Reality Hits - Bugs Everywhere

Here's what nobody tells you about launching: bugs don't wait for you to be ready.

While posting these challenges and creating content, things started breaking.

The image upload bug: Images weren't uploading completely. I thought I fixed it. Then we discovered you could bypass the 5-image limit with some workarounds. Great.

The security hole: My security policies weren't covering certain scenarios when users posted content. Found that one a bit too late. Better late than never, I guess.

The design disasters: Testing the platform meant constantly spotting poorly designed screens and features. Things that looked fine in development suddenly looked like trash in production.

And of course, all of this is happening while I'm trying to look professional and attract users. Nothing says "trust our platform" like scrambling to fix critical bugs in production.

The Voice in Your Head

Through all of this, there's that voice: "You're wasting your time. You could be traveling. Having fun. Not sitting at a desk building something with zero results."

It's loud. It's persistent. It shows up at 2 AM when you're debugging. It shows up when you refresh analytics and see zero new signups.

But here's what I tell myself: Even if this doesn't work, it's a good experience. This is why I learned to code. I wanted to build stuff. Real stuff that people use.

Not tutorials. Not side projects that die in a GitHub graveyard.

I wanted to ship something.

And every time I start doubting, someone new signs up. That notification? It erases everything. All the bugs, all the doubt, all the exhaustion.

Someone believed in this enough to create an account.

That's enough to keep going.

Three Weeks: 30 Developers

So after three weeks of building, fixing, doubting, and shipping, we're at 30 users.

Thirty people who signed up. Thirty people who believed this idea was worth trying.

Want to be number 31? Join Liquidcode today.

And if you're feeling competitive, I've got something for you.

Battle Me Again: Typing Speed Challenge

Remember the Markdown Editor challenge where I competed? I'm doing it again.

I just opened a new React contest: Build a Typing Speed App in React.

An app that measures your typing speed. Simple concept, endless ways to build it.

First person to join competes against me. One week. Community votes. Same deal as last time.

First Come, First Compete.

Think you can beat the founder? Prove it.

The Vision

I won't stop until Liquidcode becomes the Product Hunt for developers. But instead of showing off the best products, we rank the best devs.

A place where your skills have a scoreboard. Where wins matter. Where your rank means something to recruiters looking for talent.

We're at 30 users now. Small, scrappy, full of bugs.

But we're moving.

Join us. Compete. Help build this thing.

What are you waiting for?