Sean Drumm
Getting Going, Again
As mentioned in my previous post, I’ve always struggled with getting things built outside of my work. Whether it’s procrastinating on technical decisions (analysis paralysis), or extending an MVP requirements list to the size of a book, it’s meant I’ve not built much in my spare time that is public.
Something that really helped me for this project was embracing boring technologies. I’d always meant to learn Rails, but never had a use for it. Maybe learning a new (to me) technology is the antithesis of the blog above, but it really was a matter of hours to get going. I’ve been working with Rails since May 2020 at my day job, which really helped. I’ve not got to worry about SPAs which is a huge bonus here. I’m spending less time thinking of API endpoints, and just building stuff. It’s great.
The Idea
In 2020, as rough as that year was, I did feel there was an underserved part of the market for restaurant and bar QR menus. It’s hard to imagine right now going back to a world that doesn’t make use of QR codes, it’s pretty easy to use now on most smartphones. I think they are here to stay.
One thing I found frustrating when scanning these codes is they often sent you straight to the restaurant’s website, which more often than not was slow to load on mobile, and probably wasn’t responsive enough to show a 3 column menu.
Feeling like I’d rather have a PDF shown to me, and appreciating the simplicity of platforms like Linktree, I decided Gourmenu might be a good idea to test out.
This enables restaurants to deliver menus to users fast, without the need for their own website. They can even link to the mobile page from their social media.
Launching, But More Lockdowns
At least locally to me, more lockdowns means it’s not a great time to be reaching out to restaurants and bars. I’ll continue with paid marketing for now, and focus on building out the social profile.
The Future
Proving that I can build out something to myself, and how little it needs to be “perfect”, as much as I had read about this fact, is profound. The fear of judgement, failure and perhaps being so vulnerable in public is crippling. Inspired by Pat Walls IDGAFA, I care a little less now about those things.