Building in Public

Building in public really makes you appreciate the phrase "It's not about the destination, but the journey."

Normally when you build something you only capture key milestones. But when you're building in public, you're always sharing your journey. So you're constantly capturing things whether they're "stakeholder" quality or not.

So after a few years, you get to see how far you've come.

I started actually building Bearly Fit in 2023 but it was very adhoc. I did about 100 commits over all. The app had just

• a list of exercise logs
• a screen to create them
• handful of empty screens

Honestly, I didn't think I'd ever finish it. Work, gaming, crying all took priority.

I genuinely can't tell you how many side projects I've started and given up on.

But because I built in public, I knew people were excited for what I was building. I created an obligation for myself.

And so at the end of 2024 - I decided, this was going to be different.

in 2025 - 8 months later, I then released with

• Highlights
• Goals
• Workout plans
• Exercise logging (250 exercises + 100 pieces of equipment)
• Nutrition logging (with barcode scanning)
• Unit conversion on both
• Full reporting
• Exports to CSV + JSON

And so much more.

I'm hoping to put version 2 in the stores this weekend.

Taking the MVP I released last year and making it a sustainable, production ready app has been a long journey.

In the last 6 months, I've done 600 commits across 1075 files. 73,891 additions and 16,867 deletions.

And now, because I chose to build in public. I get to appreciate the journey as much as the destination.

Thanks for coming to my JamesTalk