First of all, I did not come up with this workout. I got all of my information from a NY Times article (link), that in turn got the idea from the American Journal of Sports Medicine. The real kudos go to them.
I did however, really want to try it, and had no good way to time myself. So, a couple weeks ago (on a Wednesday night), I built a way, and on Thursday morning (at 11:47AM) I shared it on Hacker News.
Within hours of posting the app, the numbers on Google Analytics had skyrocketed. At it’s peak that first day, the app had 600 users every 30 seconds. The day ended with 25,000 pageviews. I hadn’t thought to even add share buttons when I launched, but after adding a like button I received over 1,100 likes the first day.
At the same time, I started receiving emails from developers who were interested in porting the web version to iPhone, Android, and even Windows Phone apps. The reception in the community was incredible. A week after the website launched, I received an email from a Canadian developer who really wanted to take 7-Min to the next level. He offered to buy the site, and more importantly to push it forward. I have a full-time job, a ton of other interests, and this was a great opportunity to see my work go further. Within a few days, we’d agreed on a price, and I turned the keys over to him.
This experience was great. I followed a lot of the product development rules I’ve learned in much larger projects, and learned a ton about a full product-cycle in three weeks.
I’m now completely removed from 7-min.com but it’s one of the most enjoyable things I’ve done recently.
The numbers for the first week
795 / HN Pts. 143k / Pageviews 3.3k / Likes 650 / Tweets