A glimpse into an indie AI product launch

It was a rainy Tuesday.. 😆 jk. It was actually a weekend, and that’s when I usually start working on a fresh new idea. And I really liked the idea of Humanfest because of the interactive nature of it. What was important for me was to also do something that was brand spanking new and hadn’t been done before.

So all that was left was to actually make it happen (as in code it) and to release it to the world. I worked on that project for two days straight, fully immersed. I barely ate, slept, or interacted with anyone during that weekend. All that I could think of was the project and how to actually put it together. Luckily, I have previously done a lot of work with chat and messaging apps, so that helped.

With projects like this one, once the technical aspect of things is complete, I usually follow up with a polish stage, where I work on the UI/UX, add logos, graphics, styling, etc. — basically, making it presentable. So, when I finally got to this stage, I decided to keep the polish to the minimum in order to launch it as quickly as possible.

Finally, launch day arrived. I woke up, checked my phone (I know.. A habit I have been trying to kick for a while) and literally, the first email I see is one from Product Hunt titled “Human or AI”.

“Here we go,” I thought. The email featured what basically is the same thing as Humanfest, except, it’s called Human or Not 🤦🏻‍♂️

Of course, the products are not entirely the same, with the most notable difference being that Human or Not is a game where you get to see if the interaction you just had was with a human or AI, while Humanfest is more of a thought experiment and it deliberately does not tell you the nature of your counterpart. It’s scary how sometimes you literally just don’t know!

I won’t lie — the fact that Human or Not got released first was a very demotivating moment, but I proceeded with the launch of Humanfest anyway, and I’m happy that I did. I received some great feedback from users and learnt a lot from the whole process, while adding another AI-powered project to my arsenal.

At the end of the day, what’s important for me at this stage is to keep building, keep searching for fresh new ideas in the space, and putting the rounds in of actually launching products to the public ⚡️