Juan Hernández
Fullstack Developer
Geneva, Switzerland
Cuentos Zen .
Zen tales for reading and reflection.
Year 2023
Developed Solo
Side Project
Finished in 5 days
Literature
Zen
Mindfulness
Introduction
Cuentos Zen was my first project when I decided that I wanted to build web applications and tools for the general public. At the time, I was really into Eastern philosophy and wanted to create something related to it. 90% of the project was completed in the first two days, as it is a very simple project, but it helped me kick off a spree of projects.
Problem
There are tons of resources to find Zen tales and similar stories, but 90% of them are not good; and the good resources usually take the form of a book.
The solution I was hoping for was a curated list of resources with a minimalist and clean interface. I wanted to find a comprehensive repository of Zen tales, which I never managed to find.
Approach
I wanted to be able to read my favorite tales from anywhere, without carrying a book. I also thought about more capabilities like user voting systems, AI-generated tales, and some other ideas, but those were not part of the MVP and never made it to the final product.
With Cuentos Zen, the challenge was to discover the reality of product creation. It's not only about software engineering; you have to take into account many factors, including market needs, user acquisition channels, marketing strategy, etc. I lost a lot of time in this project figuring out how to properly set up SEO and how to actually do SEO.
Results
Cuentos Zen never had any significant traffic (nor was it expected to). From a "product point of view," it was a failure, but it is responsible for all the other projects that came after, which, in my opinion, is very valuable.
