New Product: Home Climbing Wall App
I have built two climbing walls at my house and more versions of a climbing wall app than almost any other project. The walls are for training, and in a way, so is the app. It's been a perfect test — it requires logins, groups with multiple membership roles, a news feed, and some complex customizations for dealing with editing photos. It quickly highlights the limits of no-code and vibe coding platforms, but it has also tested my ability to define and test product MVPs.
One of the key aspects of having a home climbing wall is keeping track of the various problems on the wall. Tracking problems helps you track progress, have things to work on over time, and keep the level of engagement up. You can do this a bunch of different ways: three-ring binders, shared photo albums, and apps. There are a few cool climbing wall apps out there. Some have good interfaces, fancy features, and social features, but none of them do quite what I define as a core set of features:
Quick problem entry.
Ability to easily manage routes, walls, users, etc.
Support wall changes (mine doesn't stay the same**—**does yours?)
Stay connected with the people using my wall.
Keep track of projects.
Low cost
Support multiple walls
While defining and testing versions of this app (one version had almost 1k users!), I've learned a lot about what is needed. In addition to the technical features, I've learned lessons about keeping costs down, being in control of the platform you build on, and defining a business plan to make sure you can be around for years. More updates soon, but I plan on fully building this one out and having it live in the app store later this fall. If you'd like to test it, you can sign up here, and I'll reach out in the near future.
