[42] magnets - a startup in one day

Increasingly popular with geeks is gaining entertainment in the format of the One-day Project or Funky Friday. The idea is to develop and implement a project in a very short time. The benefit is not only to feel like a real start-up and test yourself and your team for strength. The advantage is that this format allows you to test the performance of the idea and find the pitfalls before you devote yourself to the project. In addition, the added bonus is that you learn how to break an idea into pieces, highlighting the most important thing. After all, it is impossible in a day, and it’s not necessary to implement all the ideas - you need to concentrate on the main thing in order to be on time.

For us, this was the second project that we developed in this format. With the development of the first we did not meet the deadlines even close. This taught us to better assess our strength and select the tools. We took the second idea more seriously. An idea was worked out in advance, the minimum functionality was defined and the toolkit was selected. So on the eve, on Thursday, a plan of action was painted on the blackboard, the roles were distributed and the pizza delivery man was chosen. In short, everything was ready by Friday.


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Now about what exactly we were going to develop. The idea of ​​this service came to me quite a long time ago, so I managed to rest in bed, get the necessary details and get rid of the extra. We decided to make a website that would give the opportunity to upload your photo and print a photomagnet from it. It doesn't sound very difficult, does it? But, looking ahead, I will say that we did not have time to start on Friday. The reason for this was the excessive craving for perfection, so we did some functions longer than we should — so that “it was beautiful,” instead of being simple and fast. Therefore, another part of Monday went into preparation for the launch and in the evening we announced the service 42magnets.com .

For those who are too lazy to check, I will tell you how it works. You upload a photo and highlight a square area that will be printed on a magnet. Why square? First, one way or another, we would need to customize the original images to fit the magnet format. Secondly, we love Instagram and would like to make magnets from our hipster photos :) So we chose the square as a constraint. After you “prepare” the first photo, you can upload another one or several, or go straight to the payment process. Acceptance of payment in all possible ways provides the service " Interkassa ".

After that ends the high-tech and low-tech begins. Framed photos are sent to print to our partner, the company “ Manific ”, and the next day they go to their new owners. Residents of Ukraine will receive their magnets two or three days after ordering. The delivery time to other countries strongly depends on the selected country (we estimate them at 1-3 weeks from the moment of payment for the order).

When we thought about the size of the magnets, we decided to stay on a square with a side of 6.5 cm. The square of the square made it possible to come up with the name of the service - it is about 42 cm², and 42, as we know, is a special number .



We are more than satisfied with the results of the experiment. One evening after the launch, the list of to-do and feature requests in Beiskamp did not fit on the screen. Yesterday we sent the first batch of magnets to their owners, and today they are already sharing their impressions . At the moment, an even more impressive bundle of photos is ready to be sent. I am glad about the geography of delivery: it is not only Ukraine, but also Russia, and even the United States, in particular Silicon Valley and New York! We are glad that we have given the opportunity not only to print photos of ourselves, but also to send a magnet to our relatives or friends in other cities and countries.

I hope the story of our project will give you an incentive to implement your long-standing ideas and give all of us many interesting projects.