This week I created a community feedback app called ‘communitas’ using Next.js, Prisma, Vercel, and the OpenAI API. Here’s the link!
. I’ve joined the third cohort (‘Season 3’) of a 6 week program called buildspace nights and weekends. We’re now at the end of week 2, and we have to launch our thing and get users testing it. So my ask for you is… please try it out!
I created this app with the idea of helping small groups of people gather opinions and make decisions. This was a something both the community houses I’ve lived in have had trouble with, as there were many decisions to make, and the process of hearing everyone out and discussing things often took days and weeks. Coordination is hard!
So here’s the link again. I’d love your feedback too, so, what do you think of the communitas app / idea so far?
It’s still in its very early stages, there is a lot of features missing or not working, and it may not completely clear how to use the app. The idea is you create a topic - something you want to poll a few people in a community about, perhaps a tricky decision that needs to be made - then send a generated link to those people. Each person enters their thoughts, and all the input gets summarized to move the discussion forward.
Tools I used
Next.js - full stack web app framework
Supabase - a Postgres database
Prisma - a Node.js package to talk to the database
Vercel - for hosting + deploying
OpenAI API - to generate summaries of community input
Process
I had a specific goal and deadline to launch, so after messing around on my own for a bit, I followed some great guides from Vercel:
I took the bones from the guides above then adapted it to my use-case. There was lots of trial and error along the way, and I learned a lot in the process. Learning by doing is definitely ideal for me.
Lessons
Building with a community of others is very motivating
I finally launched my first full-stack app! Feeling accomplished
Getting ‘users’, as was asked of us, is a bit of an edge. So far I haven’t cared who uses what I build or reads this blog, it has mostly been for myself
As I’m writing this and asking people to test it, I’m doubting how useful or interesting the app is. I’m curious what people think of it and if there’s a different but similar thing that might be better
Next steps
Get a few people to try the app + get feedback
Continue with buildspace week 3
Things I could imagine adding if I stick to this version of the idea:
SMS integration so you can text someone a link and they text back their response
Voice-to-text so people can speak their mind and it gets summarized
Some kind of authentication so the topic creator can see all inputs but maybe the contributors can’t see other thoughts until they’ve added theirs
A feed/home page where you can view all your created topics