sumof: app that counts how many tubes of toothpaste you own

I've come to the conclusion that when things aren't working, I do more work. I'm sure that's not a great way to open a blog post. Right now I'm recording a work with me video, I just crammed dozens of tasks into my calendar, and writing this is somehow the most relaxing part of my day.

My first app, Requote, has been live for over three months and has made exactly $0. I wrote a whole post about that already, so I'll skip the details. I built something I wanted, put it out there, and didn't make it good enough to pay for.

So now I'm making another one.

The new app is called sumof. I add things I own — how many, where they are. Like the three tubes of sunscreen sitting in different drawers. Without something like this, I'd definitely buy another one next time I'm at the store. Or I can check if I still have onions in the fridge before adding them to an online order. It also means not having to stand in a bookstore wondering if I have this at home. The first thing the app shows when I open it is just the total — how many things I own.

I'm the type of person who can't focus if there's clutter around me, so minimalism has been a long-running interest. I'd thought about an app for tracking something like #minsgame before, but it stayed in the "that'd be nice" category for years. Then I started packing for a move that's about two months out, and thought — wait, this would actually be useful right now.

Requote started from something I needed — a way to organize book highlights. sumof is the same in that sense, but probably more people share this need. Anyway, I do think I've gotten a little better at building apps after Requote. Not in some dramatic way, but I have a clearer sense of what to build first, what to skip, and when something isn't working. And I make fewer dumb mistakes now.

I'm aiming to launch sometime around mid-March. When it's out, I'll post about it here.