July 26, 2020

Maker Update - Week 30, 2020

I actually haven’t posted an update last week, so it’s an update for the last two weeks.

ActionThis

The week before I was still focusing on testing ActionThis, and I got mixed feedback. From what I could get, most people delegate smallish tasks.

It’s actually a small market for specific software for virtual and executive assistants. Plus, all users said they source their help from either Upwork, Fiverr, or other services.

Next week I have two more interviews, let’s see how they go.

So far I had no-one saying they’d use or pay for it. Unless both interviews scream at me shut up and take my money, I’ll move the idea back to the someday list or abandon it.

Vica app

Since Thursday last week, I’ve been focusing on Vica app. Working on adding full sync for the services and improving the current code.

Todoist integration.

Finally, finished the Todoist integration for non-premium accounts.

Todoist has API service, but it’s not consistent, and some endpoints are available only for premium account holders.

Like getting a list of completed todo items for a specific period of time…

The alternative is to create a full Todoist client and sync period updates. Which is now implemented in Vica.

So non-premium Todoist users would be able to use Vica, but only after some time, as again, we can get completed todo items after these users signed up.

New features

This week I also had a brainstorm of new features for Vica app. Found one feature that I want to add after finishing sync for other tools (Google Tasks and Calendar and Microsoft Todo and Calendar).

The one that I want to add is inspired by the Sunrise app. Unfortunately, Sunrise app is no longer available. Microsoft bought and sunset it a few years ago.

Sunrise had a nice feature - it was sending you the daily schedule every morning (at sunrise).

Vica app has access to the calendars and the todo applications - it can pull schedule and any due tasks for the day and send it to the inbox each morning.

The core functionality is actually implemented… But I’d prefer to finish a few improvements before adding new functionality to the app.

Another bonus for the email notifications - it’s actually a push service. The app will be visible to the users each day. As right now the core application is weekly reviews, and users login only once a week.

This feature will have its own name in the Vica app. Current functionality will stay as Vica Review, and the new feature will be Vica Today.