Overview
My first mobile app built on Expo (i.e., React Native) and Firebase that allows users to store potential photoshoot and modeling locations on a map. The app was originally published to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. It has since been removed as I work towards launching a new app!
Learnings
Learning #1: A good app name makes all the difference
Creating an app name gives you the chance to be creative and have fun discussions with friends and family. The app name "Imageography" came from a play on words (i.e., "image" and "geography"). Although I thought the app name was pretty clever, I quickly realized how bad the name actually was when trying to share it with potential users. Five sylables, difficult to spell, too long to search in the app store, too similar to other "image" based apps, etc. The list keeps going for this mistake. I probably should have realized this issue sooner in conversations, but most of my time was spent actually building the thing!
Learning #2: Online vs Offline Apps
The plan from the beginning was to allow the users to store locations on their devices. I compromised with online capabilities to reduce cost initially, but little did I know that this would be the downfall of the app almost instantly. In today's world, everything is online. I know this, you know this, and the users definitely expected this. When I lauched V1 of the app, the very first question every user had for me was "How do I share this location with my friends?" with the second one being "How do I get these markers on my other device?". The expectation for online presence was overwhelming... I attempted to pivot to an online version of the app via Firebase, but I was working on this project during the nights/weekends. Each day I worked on a new online feature, I could see the users leaving the app. This ultimately led me to remove the app from the app store.