What a Near-Identical App Taught Me About Building in Public
Four days after I opened public testing for my nutrition app, I checked the Play Store for something unrelated and found another app with the exact same name. Same core idea, too: you tell it what you’re about to eat, it tells you the one thing to add so the meal actually holds you.
At first I assumed it was a coincidence — the name wasn’t especially unique, and “one thing” apps are a crowded little genre. Then I read the actual listing. It wasn’t just the name. It knew where you were eating and adjusted its suggestion for an airport versus your own kitchen. It remembered what you kept in your pantry and started suggestions from there. It never re-suggested something you’d said no to. It had a paid tier built around saving combinations that worked for you. Every one of those is a specific, non-obvious product decision —...
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