

Ask HN: How did everyone do with Launch an App Month? - commiebob

I know there were a lot of people working on launching an app by the end of November.<p>Well, it's December 2, so I figure it's time for some show and tell.<p>How did everyone do?
======
kaffeinecoma
Inspired by patio11 and Bingo Card Creator, I launched Quick Brown Frog:

    
    
       http://www.quickbrownfrog.com 
       http://quickbrownfrog.wordpress.com
    

It's at the MVP stage, and while a technical success (I think it's an awesome
in-browser app), no one seems to be interested in paying for it. I reduced the
price to $10 prior to launch, and I still haven't had a nibble. I burned
through about $200 in Adwords/Bing/Facebook ads so far. I guess it's hard to
compete with the many free typing tutors out there.

Still, I plan to keep plugging at it. I have no aesthetic sensibility
whatsoever, so next on my list is to get some badly-needed design help.

Many thanks to everyone who provided invaluable feedback during the past
month. I really learned a lot and had great fun developing it.

~~~
27182818284
> free typing tutors out there.

Why tutor? At a glance I thought it was a very cheap way for employers to test
via the browser an possible hire's typing speed. A certificate is printed by
the person at home who brings that to the employer. It should have a URL that
could be used to prove they didn't just make up the result.

~~~
rmc
That's a great idea. You can target it to job seekers ("Improve your CV") and
employeers ("Find better employees"/"Know who they are before you hire them").

------
koenbok
Well, we did not launch but had two major updates to Kaleidoscope and
Versions: <http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com> <http://www.versionsapp.com>

We're especially happy with our changeset feature for git/svn/bzr/hg:
<http://vimeo.com/17363481> and would love to hear feedback.

~~~
poincare
Those designs are absolutely awesome.

~~~
koenbok
Thanks!

------
metageek
I launched my first Android app, Fanorona, a traditional board game from
Madagascar. So far I've made four sales. At 99¢ each, minus Google's 30%, I've
made $2.78. But it was fun. (I also listed it with Archos's AppsLib, but I
don't expect to see any money there; they don't pay out until you hit $50.)

<http://fanorona.thibault.org/android/>

~~~
dpcan
Getting a Lite version out will probably help you tremendously.

~~~
metageek
There's really nothing I can take out and still be Fanorona. (Well, maybe
Undo, but that'd be insanely frustrating.) Maybe an ad-supported version.

~~~
muhfuhkuh
If you have the chops to do multiplayer (either by turns or bluetooth/network-
based), you can charge a premium for that.

Play the CPU for free, play your _friends_ for 99 cents.

~~~
metageek
That would be nice—and, yes, I can certainly do the network programming
involved. The app is even built with an MVCish architecture that would let me
just drop in the network player.

------
david_shaw
I think I did really well for the Launch an App Month.

I launched <http://sleepyti.me> as a "weekend project" at the very beginning
of November. It's a simple site designed to help users figure out the best
time to go to sleep in order to wake up refreshed.

I have been working steadily on improving the user experience thanks to really
helpful feedback that I've gotten from HN and reddit users (thanks!). The site
is currently "profitable" from the standpoint that the money I'm scrapping
together from ads pays for its share of the (cheapest) Linode plan I have.

I consider Sleepyti.me to be a success (not bad for a guy who doesn't know web
design!), and I'm looking forward to building bigger, better and hopefully
more monetizable projects in the future.

------
jerrytap
I put up a MVP at bzzard.com a couple days ago. The problem that I was trying
to solve is that I have a bunch of small websites, and I wanted to see all my
sites stats on one page. So, I’m just scratching my own itch.

The site is pretty simple to use. Think twitter for your app. Just send a
message containing 140 char message, a double, latitude, and longitude. Then
login to create a dashboard where you can display gauges, charts, and message
streams. You can filter on the message and the double value that was posted.
You can also create counts, sums, and averages in the charts and gauges.
There’s a messaging system that allows you can set up status logic to send of
messages if certain conditions are met. The dashboard and messaging evaluates
metrics, updates dashboards, and sends out messages pretty close to real time,
20-30 seconds.

The site is up and running. You can check it out by going to bzzard.com and
logging in as jerry@bzzard.com and password of jerry. I have page view and
application restart messages from bzzard.com displayed. It’s still a bit
buggy, and it is sitting on the cheapest godaddy server. But, I’m still pretty
surprised at what I was able to accomplish in such a short amount of time.

------
patio11
Appointment Reminder launches "for real" on Monday. (A cold cost me a few days
from the planned schedule.)

~~~
commiebob
Congrats! And will you be doing a final wrap up blog post about the process?
If so, I am looking forward to it.

~~~
patio11
Sure. Anything you want me to cover in particular?

I'm also in talks with Twilio about producing something with them about it.
Preview of coming attractions: everybody should use Twilio. Oh goodness. It is
freaking amazing. It is like email: add it to an application, just about any
application, and it gets suddenly, radically better. ( _And_ the existence of
it makes possible applications that wouldn't be possible otherwise, like AR.)

~~~
lionheart
I've played around with Twilio and I'll second this statement 100%.

Now I just need to think of something to make that can take full advantage of
their capabilities.

------
ashraful
I launched <http://www.hackerlunch.com>

It basically lets you meetup with other hackers. You post lunch plans and let
others join in.

Its very buggy (I am not a coder, and I don't think I'll manage to become one)
and at this point has a rather ugly interface (ironically I'm a web designer).
I worked on this for two days and released it, which is a big deal for me
since this is the first time I actually launched something.

I haven't received much feedback from the HN community, which is a bit
discouraging, but I plan to keep working on this.

In the immediate next release, I will make it a bit more stable and improve
the interface (new design: <http://i.imgur.com/KOaA8.jpg>). And after that, if
I get any positive feedback, I'll add features like adding more personal
(links to you social network profiles), filter by location, etc.

If anyone has any feedback on the site, the current version or the future
plans, please share.

~~~
middlegeek
I'd really like the filter by location feature. I think not having that is
really holding you back. Good luck.

------
kaffeinecoma
For everyone who has launched, have a look at this site:

    
    
       http://www.44tips.com/b/Eric/Where_to_submit_your_Startup/
    

Spend a few hours submitting your site to whatever review sites from that list
are appropriate for your app.

------
carbon8
I put together Markup Converter <http://markupconverter.com/>

It's a simple web service for converting markup from one format to another.
Most of the conversions in the app are done using the Haskell library Pandoc,
but I'm also using Discount, Python's Docutils and Ruby's RedCloth. It was
also an opportunity to use MongoDB a little more. Right now it just converts
snippets to snippets, but I'm in the process of adding additional options,
like autolinking URLs when outputting HTML and adding headers and footers for
formats like RTF that require them for complete documents.

I really liked the November sprint idea and am going to try to launch at least
one thing a month this winter, even if only a simple microapp.

------
JoelSutherland
Well it was about a year in the making, but we finally launched our product to
the public:

<http://www.gethifi.com>

Getting it out the doors is a great feeling!

~~~
pstinnett
Congrats Joel - looks like it's come a long way since I first took a look when
you guys told me about it last year.

------
hariis
It is amusing with our app, we launched 'Can I afford it now?'
<http://caniafforditnow.com> and when we showed it to friends, everyone got
excited and started telling us how we could monetize it and how they might use
it but they never actually went and used it.

We think it has potential and it is just a matter of finding motivated users
and will push in that direction but we shall see....

If you have ideas, please share or email me

~~~
samd
The main problem I see is that filling in information sucks, and you have to
fill in a lot of information to get an answer. The other problem is that
people who bother to keep track of all that information probably already use
something like Mint. Mint already has a Goals feature that let's you do
something similar, and they already have all your data.

To get around this problem you could make a bunch of assumptions and just
present people with some good financial tips in the form of questions.

For example, let's say the person says they want to buy a $10000 car.

Your app would respond:

Are you paying in cash? If so,

\- Do you have enough saved up for an emergency? You should have at least 6
times your monthly expenses saved for emergencies.

Are you going to make monthly payments? A 3 year loan for $10,000 at 6%
interest will cost you about $300 per month.

\- A car should cost no more than 1/3 of your annual income, do you make at
least $30000?

\- Your monthly expenses shouldn't exceed your income, do you make at least an
extra $300 per month?

\- Some of your monthly income should go towards retirement. Are you saving at
least 6% per month?

Etc.

Then you could offer people the option of putting in their information to make
the feedback more accurate and personalized.

------
cemregr
I launched my MVP, Photosherpa. If you take too many photos and don't have
time to go through them, you'd like it. You send all your photos to it, you
get back only the good ones (so you can put them online right away).

    
    
       http://www.photosherpa.com
    
    

Since I couldn't figure out Paypal integration yet, it is completely free :)
Within December I'll try to integrate it with Paypal and Flickr/Facebook (so
processed photos could get uploaded with one click).

~~~
lt
This really looks like something I could use. I'll give it a try!

------
jaxn
I was planning to launch <http://getbizen.com> in November. In some ways it is
a success. The site it up, I can accept new customers, there is a product (a
BI dashboard for franchisees).

However, I got a little sidetracked because I had fundraising opportunities
pop up. I ended up spending more time in the last two weeks of November
talking to investors than I did talking to customers. I don't know that I
should say that I was "sidetracked" because I am responding to investor
inquiries, not seeking out potential investors.

My goal was to launch the app and have a paying customer. Instead the app is
ready for customers, and I have customer interest, but I did not meet that
goal. I was using the HN November push as a way to try and accelerate the
execution of a business I had already started working on (in September).

I am not going to claim success in Launch an App Month, but it was great for
me and I have been killing it all month. Now I am going to do "Close the
funding December" so that I can get back to building the business. I am really
excited by this opportunity.

------
europa
I am still working on mine. It'll take a few more weeks before the MVP ready
to be launched. I have my landing page up at <http://www.serverfabu.com/>

The inspiration for this project came from the feedback I've received for my
ASK HN <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1815344>

~~~
patio11
I am _very_ interested in seeing what you come up with, even if I have no
immediate use for it now. The last month taught me, again, why I am not a
sysadmin.

~~~
europa
Thanks for showing interest in this. I'll definitely post my launch here. Also
notify you if you have signed up at my landing page

------
benologist
I rolled out a series of huge updates for my site:

\- released a JavaScript version of the API

\- released an ActionScript 2 version of the API (AS2 is an antique I wasn't
going to bother with but one of my users back-ported my API for me so I took
it from there)

\- added custom data for leaderboard scores, can't wait to see what my users
do with that

\- added some awesome new reports to help developers make their games more
engaging and generally ease them into data-driven development, a lot of casual
game developers "launch and forget" which is something I'd like to see phased
out

\- launched the level sharing API for user-created levels

\- announced pricing, still haven't implemented it yet but that's coming ASAP

And I made the whole thing real time ... 8 billion events a month and growing!

------
gbrindisi
Well! Made and shipped Pepbot.

    
    
        http://pepbot.com
    

It's a disposable temp email app with the ability to automate the confirmation
task that many services require (wait the mail > click the confirmation link >
receive account > success).

------
noodle
launched it. i'm not super comfortable sharing it just yet with the HN crowd
just yet because (1) its starting to reach the upper limits of the tiny slice
i'm running it on and i'd like to save those resources for users, and (2) its
super niche and i only know of 3 HN users who would maybe ever use it.

its basically a statistics gathering/analytics app for a sport. 24 hours and
about 150 registered users. it currently only has a free version and i'm
working on new features for a paid version.

i'm stuck on pricing, though. not sure how much people will be willing to bite
on any paid version of what i'm offering, even if i added some super awesome
features.

i use it, though, and thats what counts.

------
iuguy
I didn't do so great. My MVP works, but it needs more effort before it's ready
for Beta (as a lot will change between now and Beta, but it's about a day or
two's work). Minklinks actually works well and makes sharing links a one-click
job.

In the end my day job got in the way, and while I was up for spending evenings
and weekends on it my wife had arranged something on nearly every weekend that
I couldn't back out of.

I have a large block of time booked off in December, a lot of which I'll be
using on Minklinks so it's likely to be a 'launch december' app now. You can
still sign up for the Beta at <http://www.minklinks.com/>.

------
kqueue
I submitted stk8.co few days ago but it barely got the attention.

stk8.co allows you to stack several Links or Text and share them under one
shortened url.

It embeds a preview of the link for common services like youtube, vimeo,
amazon, cnn, scribd, etc...

Here are couple of examples:

<http://stk8.co/gkbbbc>

<http://stk8.co/sample>

It also has a bookmarklet for easy stacking. The bookmarklet is transparent,
one click is all what it takes to stack a link.

~~~
27182818284
I like this a lot! Thanks for putting it out there! The whitespace around the
pages bugs me a bit, but I'm not sure what would be better in its place.

------
tommizzle
I launched the beta of my app in mid-November, although I must admit I did
start mid-October so I'm hoping I still qualify!

I decided to build a revenue generating URL shortener. This was one of the
first full projects where I basically did everything myself - research,
design, development etc, which was a bit frustrating a times. It's ridiculous
how unproductive my design days were compared to my development days, but I
guess I'm just going against the grain there (I'd be interested to know how
many people have 'mastered' both design & development.) That said, I learned
quite a lot about the whole process, so definitely a good result.

I decided to launch before a lot of the esential functionality was complete
(conversions, payments etc) just to get a feel for what people wanted, and
most importantly if it was worth persuing the idea further. I'd probably do
the same again next time, although I must admit I felt a bit helpless in the
first week of launch when bugs were being uncovered/features were being
requested and I was still working on the core.

I'm now onto marketing my app with my business partner. The market we're
trying to is obviously insanely saturated, so it's a little frustrating at
times, but I'm super motivated to get this out so lets hope we get some
traction sometime soon :)

The URL of the app is <http://shrtn.co>

~~~
poincare
It looks like users can make money by having their affiliate codes embedded in
(qualified) links they submit. But, how are you making money?

~~~
tommizzle
We have the relationships with the merchants, the users don't. We take a small
cut of each sale.

------
angelbob
I got <http://wantmyjob.com> in passable shape, and realized some new things I
should really have done with it. It's a peer-to-peer job search site -- asks
questions about your jobs, recommends other people's jobs to you based on what
you say you like.

I'm making those upgrades in December, which some of us are continuing into
:-)

Right now you have to make an account to have a look (that's one of the things
I'm fixing in December), but it's pretty neat.

------
imack
I managed to amalgamate some similar projects into <http://feedladder.com> and
move it from activerecord to mongomapper. Basically it allows for twitter
feeds to have their own submission and voting for their tweets. Best example
right now is probably <http://profquotes.feedladder.com>.

Haven't gotten around to making workflow to add new ones automatically though,
school and work take a toll.

------
markkanof
Terrible, although I am smack in the middle of selling my house and moving
from the east coast to the west coast, so perhaps this wasn't a great time to
try to build and launch an app.

I really like the idea of setting a deadline to launch an app though. November
wasn't really a workable time period for me personally, but it would
definitely be helpful for me to set a deadline and possibly make it public so
it would force me to really get something done.

~~~
Timothee
Same here. Except that I _bought_ a house.

Even my similar submission to HN about the status of the apps launched didn't
go so well (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1955031>) :)

But, as I said there, I'll keep working on this.

------
dejv
I launched <http://imendi.com>

It is basically some web app to learn other languages (Spanish, Portuguese and
Czech right now, few will follow soon). Principle is very simple: you assign
foreign words to its english equivalent.

I build this because I am learning Portuguese right now and it is hard to
learn grammar without knowledge of basic words. There are around 300 most
common words in the app right now.

------
kabuks
I launched <http://bettermeans.com> Over a year of coding though, so it was
luck that it launched in November

------
Nicos
We launched everyAir late Oct, but started really getting users this month
after some updates. It is a fast remote desktop app for iOS designed for games
and movies. Check it out everyair.net

Getting encouraging feedback from users. We are now heads down working on the
next version due in a few days.

Would love HN feedback, email for free coupon.

------
ptm
I launched fake iphone text - <http://www.fakeiphonetext.com/>

------
andrewjshults
Very early stage launched a site called WannaDo with my buddy davidfraga.

It is an easy way to remember the things that you hear about on the go so you
can check them out later (Books, Movies, Restaurants, etc). You send an email
to things@wanna.do and it'll be sorted and stored for later. Lists are public
by default so it can be used as a way to check out the things that your
friends are interested in doing (working on proper user accounts so that there
is a way to keep things private/actually discover your friends).

You can try it out at <http://wanna.do> or by sending an email to
things@wanna.do with the list name you'd like to create in the subject line
and the item you'd like to add to that list in the body of your email. We'll
set up an account for you automoatically a-la-Posterous.

------
amoore
I launched one. See all of the groupon deals in your town and others in one
simple interface: <http://www.groupongroupie.com/> I'm still working on a few
kinks in the daily email list. The daily inspirational emails from 21times
really helped.

~~~
bwooceli
Ha! Since I 'discovered' this I've used it nearly daily in preparation for
Christmas travels as well as gift shopping for friends around the country. I
had a suspicion that you were a HN-er.

~~~
amoore
Whoah - a user. I've heard about you, but didn't know you existed. Thanks for
trying it out! (and tell your friends).

------
aspir
Still working on it. But I started late. It's also my first app push - I'm a
"business guy" learning to code.

~~~
nlakhani
I am in this position as well, learning to code and work on my idea at the
same time. Very interested in hearing about what resources and tools you used!

------
Yoms
I launched the beta of <http://babble.ly>

A Twilio powered free disposable link generator for phone numbers. The goal is
to enable users to be contacted by phone on the internet, quickly, easily and
privately.

I'd love feedback!

------
tjarratt
While I didn't actually launch anything, I did make a lot of progress on two
separate apps:

One to facilitate collaborative tabletop games (think Settlers of Cataan or
Dungeons & Dragons) between remote parties. Built with node.js, redis, jquery,
html5, css3, buzzwords.

Another smaller, quicker app that spun off the first was a web interface for
the OS X `say` command. Sometimes I'm on ubuntu or windows and I wish I had
access to make a mac actually speak a sentence. Built using the same stack,
same tools, just much smaller in scope.

I only pivoted late in the month, the day after thanksgiving, so I'm hoping to
launch that after I tidy up the UI and come up with a name. Anyone have any
suggestions?

~~~
conorgil145
I would love to hear more about the app that you started for games like
Settlers of Catan. I love Settlers and I have thought about doing something
similar for a while.

Do you have a link to source or a blog post about it or anything? Could you
talk more about what you tried to build?

------
ritonlajoie
Well the facebook group is very verbose about that :
[http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_141079939271952...](http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_141079939271952&ap=1)

It's now a monthly launch pad group

------
ReadyNSet
Launched an iPhone app for young ones to learn alphabet by popping balloons :)

[http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/popn-learn-
abc/id400222528?mt...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/popn-learn-
abc/id400222528?mt=8)

~~~
dpcan
I saw you post this on the Business of Software forum...

I purchased this game when you posted there and now it's my 2 year old's
favorite game!!!

We absolutely love it, good job.

------
siong1987
<http://wavylab.com> < chinese version of pandora. it only plays chinese
songs.

stats: ~350GB songs streamed in 64KB bitrate. ~13048 hours of songs played.

New UI is pending.

------
vgurgov
We lauched videolla.com in the beginning of month, so most of the month was
spend on customer development, support and iterating product. We have some
exciting results so far, paying customers, traffic is growing, partnerships,
requests for features, etc. So things are going great so far.

BTW we are working on some kicking ass API to allow developers use premium
licensed content in your apps, sites, games. So thing you can make your Guitar
Hero with Lady GaGa music or something like watch Netflix movies with friends
and Facetime. How cool is that, huh? Signup on our site if you want to stay in
touch :)

------
RudigerMouse
I created "Airy Canary Free" for iPhone and iPod touch:
<http://www.fizzbuzzgames.com>. It went live in the app store on Nov 29th I
believe.

------
zmitri
Made an app to upload and play your music library online through the browser.
Not only that, but enabled one click library sharing between friends with an
access link.

for example: <http://ymitrimusic.appspot.com/share/5ef46>

You can login with your google account. The front end is based on the open
source sound cloud player, and i've left some of the soundcloud functionality
in for streaming.

------
saikat
Not sure if it counts since we have been in our beta for a while so it's not
exactly an MVP, but we finally launched Mockingbird 1.0 in November
(<http://blog.gomockingbird.com/10-and-real-time-collaboration>). I had been
working on the real-time collaboration stuff for a while - felt good to
finally get it out in front of users.

------
dholowiski
Well... I released a dud - SMSuL8r.com - sms reminders.

Then I built <http://castmyclips.com>, which is not quite ready for prime
time, but is usable. It allows you to take text (copied from web sites) and
turn it into audio. then you can listen to the audio & even subscribe to it in
iTunes. It was quite fun to build, and I'm actually kind of proud of it.

------
jseifer
I'm so close! I should have something up by next week. Got a ton done, though.
You know, that whole last 90% thing. I'm totally pumped, though.

------
dclaysmith
Was one long night away from launching www.rankoro.us on the 30th when the
power chord for my laptop died. Ordered a new one but we're in the middle of a
snow storm in Dublin so it's delayed. With a bit of luck, break in the weather
and a solid nights work i should be up in the next few days.

Sprint was a great idea and the last two weeks were my most productive in
yesrs.

------
foxhop
I didn't launch but I made huge progress to my webgame

Looking for advice and suggestions to the alpha release version:

<http://four2go.gumyum.com>

Feel free to login as foxhop, no authentication needed, and try it out with a
buddy.

Uses ajax long polling to update the games.

------
tenaciousJk
Based on the idea of justbuythisone.com > I did a North American version
<http://b.estprice.com> as a proof of concept.

Sample page: <http://b.estprice.com/laptop/under-1000>

------
ig1
Launched CoderStack:

<http://www.coderstack.co.uk/>

------
ladon86
Like many others, I didn't hit the launch date for my app: seating plan
software for dinner events and weddings (<http://www.tabletwist.com>). I did
make huge amount of progress though, and I'm hoping to launch before 2011!

------
mathgladiator
I did alright, I got the technology built and am working on getting customers
to use me as the UI.

[http://blog.mathgladiator.com/2010/11/customer-1-without-
lau...](http://blog.mathgladiator.com/2010/11/customer-1-without-launch.html)

------
rbritton
Didn't launch a new app but did get a major version update out the door (in
addition to fixes for everything iOS 4.2 broke):
<http://ipadportfolioapp.com/>

------
ww520
I'm probably late to the party in this thread. I've launched mine couple days
ago, <http://www.previouslook.com> (web page snapshots overtime).

------
CWIZO
Started working on mine webapp, but unfortunately other things came in the
middle so I'm about 5% finished :\ I'm planning on completing it someday as we
need it internally anyway. So maybe some day.

------
JeremyHerrman
We're hoping to launch the new version of our comic creation website
<http://chogger.com> before the holiday break. Lots to do in the next 3 weeks!

------
mattmiller
I launched <http://www.agentshowroom.com/> with some help from phoenix24 I
found on OfferHN who parsed a PSD to html/css for me.

------
binarysoul
I got to a working prototype on my phone.. now all that's left is getting an
app icon, splash screen, adding some graphics to the UI. But the app itself
already works

------
thedangler
Didn't launch, But the idea is well under development. It was a month long
project, but with life and a gf sometimes its hard to get things done.

It will get done.

------
boyter
I released <http://www.searchforphp.com/> and im looking to roll out python
java and dotnet versions soon.

------
znt
I launched CaptionMash, definitely need some usability / UX feedback though.
<http://www.captionmash.com>

------
templaedhel
I made <http://7courses.com> \- An online recipe manager that allows you to
organize your recipes your way.

------
nhangen
Working on a game called Santa Strike. Should have a prototype for HN in the
next day or two. Remember Elf Bowling? It's a bit of a tribute :)

------
lionheart
Almost, almost ready. Just putting on the final touches and planning on
launching in 2 weeks.

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jasonlotito
Just to follow up: I didn't get close to being done. Looking back, November
was an awful month for me to plan on releasing something. Between the two kids
and everything they had, a week long vacation, and some big projects at work,
not to mention commitments in other areas, I just failed to make the time.

I'm not disappointed... much. However, I did get some important stuff done,
and after the holidays (which involves another big trip), I'll have some time
where I'm not going for weeks at a time that I can put together an app.

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rokhayakebe
<http://contexium.com> \-- Call analytics and mining.

In customer acquisition mode now.

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steveklabnik
I didn't reach my goal, but that's because I'm taking a break from most side
projects to finish my grad school application, which unfortunately takes
precedence due to hard deadlines. :/

