A mobile journal for first-time experiences. Log, rate, and reflect on new adventures — calendar and list views, gesture-based interactions, light/dark themes, and a chunked offline storage layer that stays smooth at scale.
I kept noticing how often I'd do something for the first time — a new restaurant, a new park, a new hobby — and never write it down. By next week I'd forget it happened. I wanted a journal that was specifically for firsts, not a general diary I'd never open.
React Native and Expo on the frontend, with everything saved locally on the device so the app stays private and works offline. The clever choice was how I store entries: instead of one big save file, the app breaks them into small chunks so the calendar stays instant even after years of use. Most journal apps slow to a crawl over time — this one won't. The founder lesson: pick a storage pattern early that can grow with you. It's invisible work that pays off a year in, and rewriting it later is a slog you don't want.
Designing for "occasional use" is harder than designing for "daily use." Most apps optimize for engagement — streaks, push notifications, badges that punish you for not opening it. This one needed to feel good even if you only opened it once a month. I cut every engagement trick on purpose, which made the app calmer but the design problem harder.
Live on the App Store after roughly three weeks of build time. The pattern here — single-purpose journal, offline-first, no engagement tricks — is one I'd recommend to any first-time founder: it's the smallest possible app that still feels complete, and the kind of thing one person can ship without a team.