A small story about HappyInbox
A few years ago, as it has happened many times before, I had an idea. Once I have an idea I can get really passionate about it. In this case, it did happen. So I did not waste more time and got to work.
The idea was a browser extension for Gmail to gain better control, productivity, and overall experience when doing your emails. I created user stories, an MVP model, and even hired a UX/UI designer to create an AdobeXD mockup. (I will share the mockups here the next time). I also started talking to some developers since at that time, I did not have enough experience in programming.
On the way to exploring the potential challenges, I came across a requirement of Google which was just newly released for extensions that have access to Google user-accounts: I would have to pay for a security audit which might cost between 5,000 and 10,000€. Of course, this totally makes sense, even though it was a kick in my face at that time. Then I explored the possibilities to handle this data only on the client side to avoid the audit, since this only applies if you handle data on your server. This seemed possible but really complicated, and a very similar software (also an extension for Gmail) did not do it like this, either (maybe for a reason).
LONG STORY SHORT. TIME TO SAY GOODBYE
Even though I spent money on this idea and put in a lot of work, I realized it was time to say goodbye. It's hard to do sometimes, but it was the right call. We tend to have problems with these kinds of decisions. You can relate to this easily when you have played POKER. It's really hard to opt-out of a round if you have already invested a lot. You feel like "keep going, it's too late to opt-out," but in most cases, this makes everything only worse.
The change of perspective helped. I stopped thinking about how much money and time I had invested and rather focused on the good parts. I learned how to use AdobeXD, the creation of Software-User-Stories, and many more things. Whatever you do, you will always learn something, especially if you are out of your comfort zone. Therefore, there was nothing to regret!
So, HappyInbox is only the name of an old project that I no longer work on. I do still like the name, though. Therefore, I just use the name as the company name.
