So....I just launched a new podcast and started a new project....
Over the last few weeks, I started putting out social posts around the theme of podcasts/developers/startups. In a nutshell, I was looking for some interesting founders that were building in public, sharing their journey about building their startups.
Especially developer founders. I love developers.
After not really being able to find much "build in public" type content within the blockchain space, I decided to start pursuing the creation of some. Both encouraging others to start their own public chronicle of their startup journey and also looking for a co-host for me to start one. And I found a fren to join me :)
Enter pod.dev
The pod.dev show will be a developer focused series for my co-host Scott (@cloakdDev) and I to talk openly about building startups within the blockchain space. Plus getting nerdy about tech things along the way. It's "build in public" at its core.
Scott and I had actually never met before decided to start this show together (aside from an occasional post on twitter, but that was very minimal). We did a quick call for vibe checks on the idea and conversational tone of the show. We both decided to do the show together! Even in our first episode, I feel like we were able to dive into nerdy dev things like what are we building (see below for my new project).
PS: You like that domain?? I saw it come available on the open market a few months ago and for a pretty low price. So I snagged it (without an exact use for it). I know, I know. I have a domain problem. :)
What will we talk about?
We aim to publish every 2 weeks and chronicle the journey of building software products. We each are building various products in the Solana ecosystem. Each at very different stages. Scott is much further into this journey than me (building FluxBeam, FluxBot, and Rug Check).
With the difference in our current journey points, I think we are able to cover a lot of the spectrum of thoughts on building software products. And since we are both developers, with a good bit of knowledge about Solana development, I plan to lean into that as our niche.
We will get nerdy. We will get technical. I am excited.
If you are interested in following along our journeys to build software business using blockchain, you can use the links here to find the pod.dev show on the common platforms:
What am I building?
Somewhat in tandem of launching pod.dev, I also broke ground on a new project. It's a personal finance app for the crypto native called Nickle.app. (I own the domain but there is no site live yet).
I know what you might be thinking: "did this guy Nick just name a product after himself?". Honestly, no (lol). In my domain scavenging bad habit, I stubbled across the domain Nickle.app on the open market for suuuuper cheap for a single word domain. Like $16 per year cheap. With "nickle" being a financial term, I snagged it with an eventual goal to build something like this.
Personal finance app for the crypto native
I am very excited about this project. Especially for the tech to build it. I might write up a separate blog post detailing my thoughts on how to actually build this. I did detail a bunch of my thoughts on how I plan to build some of Nickle.app on pod.dev, but at a high level here it is too:
- each user gets a separate database (multi-tenant using Turso and SQLite!!!)
- user lists all their Solana accounts
- standard RPC provider webhooks will be used to get watch/record new transactions for these accounts
- get historical transactions for each account with a queueing engine based on
getSignaturesForAddressand A LOT of RPC calls - write a parsing engine that can roughly categorize Solana transactions based on what instructions did
Even in our first pod.dev episode, Scott both expressed some concerns about how some of these will scale but also that this would be really cool to build. This podcast is going to be so fun!
Authar or Nickle or Both?
A few weeks ago, I mentioned I was working on a content publishing platform called Authar. I do still very much plan to continue building that (especially since I do have a lot of code written for it). But for now, I am shifting focus to Nickle.app.
The main reason is straight forward: I really really want a way to be able to track all of my Solana accounts in a central place. Once cohesive dashboard that I can see activity across all accounts, categorize all transactions for tax purposes, and even get insights into cost basis and ROI on doing things in the crypto space.
This finance app solves a need that I presently have. Whereas a blockchain based content publishing platform like Authar does not solve a problem I am currently experiencing (even though it is something that is sorely missing in the Solana ecosystem).
Limited time, means limited work :/ Plus I am cooking some other things with Solfate...