Luggy is my biggest project to date. I started working on this project in early 2018 to create an application that could bring together travel enthusiasts. While other social networks do offer methods for sharing one’s travels, there is a missing market for travel communities that want to share more meaningful lessons and advice to fellow globe trotters. I wanted to build a mobile app where people can talk about the different cultures in the world, and where each traveler can share their journey and the lessons they learned.
For such a small app to have a chance at finding its audience, it had to be available on iOS and Android. It had to be easy to use, offering all the necessary features and with a powerful backend allowing travelers from all over the world to share their travel journals.
The challenge? I had to build this whole platform on my own.
After more than a year of work, Luggy was released on iOS and Android on June 13, 2019. That same day, I also released a short film explaining the process of creating Luggy - with a touch of humor. The short film is called "Dropout" and is available on YouTube.
I continued to talk with users to find out what could be improved.
I released many updates and since then Luggy has become an app that travelers love to use.
I built the iOS version using Xcode and Swift. This project taught me a lot about mobile app development. As a beginner, I knew my code wouldn't be the cleanest, but I also knew I wanted an excellent user experience. I used several frameworks and libraries to speed up the development time as much as possible.
- I used MapKit and CoreLocation for the map portion
- StoreKit for in-app purchases
- OneSignal to manage Push Notifications
- Crashlytics for bug reports and usage statistics
- Nuke for image management
- Alamofire for API calls
- SQLite for the local database
- OAuth to sign-in with Apple/Google/Facebook
- etc.
A project of this size provided me with a deeper understanding of Xcode and iOS development.
I built the Android version using Android Studio and Java. As an Apple product user, it was less instinctive for me to develop on Android. But as with the iOS version, my goal was not to have the most beautiful source code, but to have an incredible user experience.
I used the equivalent of iOS Frameworks / Libraries for Android in order to offer a uniform app between the two platforms. They both have the same features and performance.
I enjoyed working on Android and learning the differences between the two OS.
For the backend, I made poor decisions because of my lack of experience.
I rented a VPS server from OVHCloud. I then created an API in PHP so that the app could communicate with the storage and the MySQL database. Looking back, I could have had a better solution with AWS or another service. As the VPS is based in France - and despite good optimization and a SSD - there is still high latency in certain areas of the world.
A few months after the release, many updates and thousands of users, I wanted to take Luggy to the next level. Although it’s possible to achieve great things by working alone with a limited budget, a project is often more successful when it has a team of specialists behind it.
I started to learn how a startup works, including fundraising, business angles, accelerators, incubators, VC, etc.
Then... Covid-19 arrived.
As Luggy is mainly used by French travelers, usage statistics collapsed when the lockdown and travel ban were announced. I took advantage of this downtime to continue improving Luggy and write an application for the most famous startup accelerator in the world: Y Combinator.
After a few months, I received a negative response from YC. It was not too surprising given the size of my project compared to that of this startup accelerator. But several months later, I received another email from Y Combinator telling me that my application was in the top 10% of startups they had reviewed. This message was important to me because it was the first time that such an important organization had shown me that my work, done independently, isn’t without importance.
After several applications to Y Combinator and many discussions with investors, I decided that Luggy should remain the little project created in my bedroom. Currently, the app hasn't been updated for several months, but hundreds of users are still using it.
I'm still working on Luggy from time to time, but I’m not planning on any more big updates. Maybe everything would have been different without Covid; better execution on my part would have allowed Luggy to expand a lot more. In the end, I have an immense sense of pride for this project built all on my own.
Update (11/2022) : Luggy is now offline.
After spending three years of my life working full time on this project, I learned three main valuable lessons: an idea is worthless without good execution, the best way to learn is to make mistakes and alone we go faster, together we go further.
If I had to start this project again, I would avoid making this crucial mistake - and I think that makes me confident about my future as a Product Designer. I was able to work on all stages of the process of creating an app, and I consider that an impressive asset.
Luggy also showed me that I feel better as a Product Designer rather than a Software Engineer. I like the creative aspect of designing a product, I like to empathize with users and solve their problem. In my design process, the user experience is my highest point of attention. Technology was secondary.
It was an immense and amazing project.
Luggy brought thousands of travelers together and allowed them to share their adventures. Luggy allowed parents to follow the journey of their son on a trip to the other side of the world. Luggy allowed a father to follow the daily life of his wife and son. Luggy showed the beauty in travel separate from the superficiality of “likes” and “follows.”
