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Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

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Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#291

Post by HardcoverJeff »

phildenhoff wrote: post #214
northrup wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is funny, StoryGraph is a Ruby on Rails app, exposing an API is a doable thing, which leads me to believe it is not a priority or a purposeful design decision.

Yeah Hardcover seems to have a GraphQL API they use for their UI, which they expose. There’s not a lot of extra polish for third party devs — it feels like “this is the API we use, use it or not, things may break”. On the other hand, StoryGraph does server-side rendering and so it doesn’t have an API already. So adding one would be a decent amount of work

To be clear, Hardcover also does server-side rendering.

GR ditching their API was one of the primary motivations for Adam Fortuna (Hardcover's founder and Lead Dev) to even think about trying to create a competitor, so when he did create one, having an API available to others was a primary focus.

Note: Hardcover is also working towards open sourcing at some level, hopefully in 2025.

Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#292

Post by HardcoverJeff »

andrewmutz wrote: post #229
ryangs wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excited to hear about Hardcover! I like StoryGraph but the lack of API frustrates me - I want to be able to sync back to my general notes store (Obsidian). Hopefully Hardcover works better with that.

I’m going to guess most of their users aren’t asking for an API

Right now we get a lot of tech/ dev oriented users, and many of those are looking for an API :)

Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#293

Post by HardcoverJeff »

magnio wrote: post #159
phildenhoff wrote: post #147

StoryGraph is an excellent tool and I continue to use it daily. I’ve also found Hardcover.app, which I quite like. It has an API and a slightly more refined UI, but it’s clearly more than one person working on it. Of course, if your focus is book clubs, Fable is likely the app for you

I also use Hardcover.app, but the community there is tiny compared to Goodreads, with the only possible exception being fantasy readers.

GR claims 125 million+ users.

StoryGraph now claims over 3 million.

Hardcover currently has 20K - and yes, a lot of those are fantasy based readers.

That just means it is easier for other readers to come in and potentially become the new largest user group. :)

Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#294

Post by HardcoverJeff »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #267
phildenhoff wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solidifying my dislike of Goodreads, I got my “year in books” email from them today and the first thing that loaded, at the top of the email, is an ad. For pillow cases. Folks, don’t do that

It’s cyclical. Once the StoryGraphs and Hardcovers of today are big enough to be not bothered about some users with refined UX taste they’d do the same. This repeats.

I don't think it is Amazon so much as sheer number of users.

When you have 20K (like Hardcover), it is much easier to be focused on each of them (or at least small groups of them) than when you have 20 million - much less a few multiples of that number.

As we grow, even Hardcover will have to evolve. This noted, I know this team (including myself, to be clear). Adam is truly focused on innovation and dev excellence. Ste, our lead designer, always has his eye on UI/ UX improvements and listening to what our users want/ how our users are using the site. As for myself, I'm the data/ social media guy - always looking to make our data as solid as possible and looking to use social media as effectively as possible. :)

Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#295

Post by HardcoverJeff »

phildenhoff wrote: post #147

StoryGraph is an excellent tool and I continue to use it daily. I’ve also found Hardcover.app, which I quite like. It has an API and a slightly more refined UI, but it’s clearly more than one person working on it. Of course, if your focus is book clubs, Fable is likely the app for you

One point of note:

Nadia has a couple of people working with her as well - Rob does some stuff, and Abby is their Head Librarian (or whatever similar title, she's effectively an all-around assistant that runs their Librarian Corps in addition to doing a few other things).

Hardcover is similarly a 3 person team - one primary Dev (Adam, Founder and Lead Dev), one primary UI/ UX guy (Ste, Lead Designer), and one primary data guy (myself, Head Librarian, also runs our Librarian Corps).

Nadia is awesome, don't get me wrong. What they've done over there is truly impressive and you'll never hear me say otherwise. Hell, I'm a paying supporter and librarian over there, I think they do such great work.

But I do think that what we've got going on at Hardcover is even better, and I'll stand by that too. :)

Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#296

Post by gregors »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #61
bilbo0s wrote: post #10

Only tangentially relevant to the story I guess, but StoryGraph is kind of a brilliant idea.

I should really migrate from GoodReads; since Amazon bought them, development has effectively stopped, and there's a lot of QoL issues.

A story as old as acquisition itself

Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#297

Post by gregors »

noprocrasted wrote: post #134
grog454 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are there any other products with such a small team and a huge userbase? My game Nebulous was 1.5 devs (one full time one part time) and multiple millions of MAU. 9.5 years later it's still going well. > when the business requires more coding and technical debt comes how do they manage it Delete bad code. Replace with good code. Sounds simple enough but in my experience at mega and mid corps, step 1 is almost never…

> Delete bad code. Replace with good code Your points are valid but there's also the issue that the more developers you have the more communication overhead there is, which makes large changes to the codebase hard/impossible. With a handful of devs you can jump on a call, brainstorm for an hour or two and come to a mutual agreement, then one can submit a several-thousand-line PR refactoring the whole thing and nobody…

>>>> This kind of coordination is impossible in larger teams,

And that's the real reason service architecture took off

Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#298

Post by BehindBlueEyes »

nine_k wrote: post #181
nightowl_games wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who's done game dev professionally for a decade, as well as had countless personal projects and has known others to have done the same: don't underestimate the toll game dev can take on you, it's a cruel mistress. Stardew Valley is a massive outlier.

Can't disagree. But, you know, making love can be pretty physically taxing, but people do it, because the process itself is its own reward. It's only work if you tolerate it for the reward on the payday.

Work that is its own reward is a hobby. Work that is rewarded by a paycheck is a job. There are other types of works too: chores, responsibilities, being a good neighbour...

All of these can be hard work, All of these can be taxing, all of these can be intrinsically fun and rewarding.

I wish people would stop conflating work with just employment.

Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#299

Post by p3rls »

rafram wrote: post #279
p3rls wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I'd bet 90% of goodreads users are just googling quotes but yeah this girl got her timing right, Amazon bought goodreads and then just sat on it for like a decade... Storygraph would never ever be able to compete with goodreads on search, so they sorta had to pivot to winning on social and stickiness.

> this girl Seriously think about whether you’d refer to an adult male startup founder as a “boy.”

[flagged]

Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#300

Post by kashunstva »

p3rls wrote: post #299
rafram wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this girl Seriously think about whether you’d refer to an adult male startup founder as a “boy.”

[flagged]

> ...fascist.

Ad hominem comments are out-of-guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html:

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.

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