Sunsetting Fitpholio

If you've been following my blog or tweets, you might have seen that back in April, May, and June, I launched a website called Fitpholio. It was an experiment in using AI to help me create my own data-driven application. It was an amazing experience, and I was able to complete the project entirely on my own with the assistance of Chat-GPT.

The idea for Fitpholio came from a previous project where I created my own blog using Chat-GPT. I started logging my workouts, tracking the time I spent exercising, as well as the time spent in the sun, cold showers, and the sauna. I expanded on this idea with Fitpholio by adding the ability to track different fitness tests with visually appealing graphs to show progress. Additionally, I incorporated a feature that allowed users to follow their friends' fitness activities, similar to how Twitter works.

However, over the past six months, I've struggled to attract and retain users for the site. While I did manage to get a few sign-ups, none of them returned. I understand the steps required to build a user base, but unfortunately, I don't have the time or extra funds to dedicate to that effort. My main focus is on my work at data.world, which takes up a significant amount of my time. Additionally, I lack expertise in deploying and hosting database-driven applications, and the service I used to host Fitpholio was quite expensive, costing me $100 per month. I tried migrating the site to Digital Ocean, but I couldn't get it to work properly.

Despite these challenges, the overall experience of creating Fitpholio was fantastic, and I felt incredibly proud to have built something from scratch and given it a chance to succeed, even if it was only for a brief period. I hope that someday, when I have more time, I'll be able to create my next product, and I'm genuinely excited about the prospect.