The 3-Year Mock-up: A Link Library Case Study

We are starting again with Business Hacks Season 2. As our opening episode, we would like to talk to you about case studies and how important it is to start with a project, even if the results are very bad.

The Beginning

It all started before July 3, 2022, when I signed up for a summer challenge: to create a new project from scratch over two months of summer vacation, using a maximum budget of 1000 złoty. I could use another existing project, but the specific project/service itself had to be new. I decided to use Blogelist as a content platform and create a new project with a link library. Here’s how I described the idea in my first post:

“I will be developing a small course tool. It will be not just another “uDemy”. It will be something like bookmarks and catalogs, which should help organize free materials on the Internet into free courses. You do not need to buy courses for even simple topics, which nevertheless are described on the internet. You can search if someone made some free materials as an introduction and start already with this. If you need something more, then you can consider starting with paid courses. Our course tool will be based on everything which can be added as a Link (Youtube, Blogs, Files, Instagram, …) if you have some materials like that, you should be able to add your own mini-course and then People could find it in our repository. Details will be developed as well during our Challenge.”

First Iteration

When starting the project, I named it Blogelist Courses. Very simple—it references an existing name, so there was no need to waste time inventing a new one. I could start validating right away.

What was really important was that in the following week, besides the code name for the project, I defined “Case Scenarios” and “Use Cases“. Looking back from a distance of 3 years, my assessment of the scenario is “Bad case scenario“—but we’ll get to that. Why is this important? When I migrated to the new version, finally written as an application, I can now go back to that article, see all the use cases (I even wrote preliminarily about Business Cases), and try to develop the application according to the original assumptions.

First feedback? Random:

“I received some time ago a Newsletter from another Person. I did not read it, I Flagged it and waited for a better time. I looked during the weekend at my folder with all flagged items and saw the topic about PDF-Hunters and People who are only interested in Free Content and will leave you when you send a ‘more commercial’ e-mail. I did not ask for such feedback. I received it just in time. It is addressing my primary use case. Together with the Feedback mentioned above, these are the most important feedback from the Market, as they are addressing core assumptions in my project. For various reasons, I am doing this as a Project, not as a regular business, but maybe it’s wrong? I will be back with new analysis in the future on this Topic. For next week(s) the most important thing is development and showing more.”

“I feel a little bit under the water.” – We are halfway

In an article from July 31, 2022, I described my first crisis. I’m halfway through the summer challenge. I practically have nothing. It would be great to show at least some kind of MVP. What can come before that? A mock-up! And delivering the first value.

That’s when I came up with a version of the application that turned out to be not so much temporary as it lasted for almost 3 years. Yes, for almost 3 years, this project was in the mock-up phase. But it delivered value. It was based on ready-made WordPress blocks—I could collect links and consolidate them in these places. Materials prepared for the mock-up are still working today (even tonight as I’m writing notes for this article, I got a report that something was downloaded).

August 15, 2022—that’s when I described the creation of “Travel 101“, one of the most important courses in the database to this day. It’s precisely the materials from this course that are regularly downloaded even now.

Summer Challenge Summary

And so we’re at the phase of summarizing the summer challenge. That’s when I had to write a summary and realize for the first time that the project didn’t go as I wanted and was far from what I had written at the beginning about how I imagined it.

And those are the main negatives. In the summary article, you can read all the points. If you’re curious, my project finished second to last in the community vote.

But what went well? First of all, I made it to the end of the competition. That’s already a lot. Many, many people don’t have the courage to start, or they abandon the project along the way. I managed to persevere until the end.

I managed to pivot from the original idea to simply delivering value to readers and creating a mock-up. Thanks to that, I was able to develop the project even further this year.

My summer project additionally created its own side project. There was a need to create a link shortener for the project. So at that time, within this project, I created “blg.bz“, one of the basic tools for us to this day.

I gained contacts that I later used, for example, in the “Internet Business” series, which will also be the foundation for developing the topic and some future episodes of “Blogelist Business Hack.” Business-wise, a lot started precisely in this challenge.

Fast Forward to 2025

We’re now in 2025. First, in the first half of 2025, taking advantage of the big AI trend (including AI programming), I started experimenting with these tools on my own. How can they help me? Can they help me? How to do it safely? I started creating the first applications to see if I could deliver something for the community. For web applications, there was one condition: the first application had to be something with the fewest possible attack vectors. The chosen target was an application… precisely for LinkLibrary. And so it happened. A dedicated LinkLibrary application replaced the original mock-up that had been functioning for about 2 and a half years.

The last stop and modification was September 2025 and a major expansion of the music ecosystem in Blogelist. That’s when I added another 7 libraries related to music, and the application increasingly fulfills its role as a “Courses” application with links to materials in other places.

Next Steps?

What’s next? The application will undergo another mini facelift with the most needed features. Then the core of the application will be modified as a “module” that can be installed in its own portal system, which will be created as part of “FanPC.Net Revival” which will be used everywhere we don’t use WordPress. If you like following project progress, their pivots, and development, this series might also be interesting for you. We encourage you to subscribe to the main Blogelist channel as well.

Resources

Video

You can watch this article in video form from Youtube:

Infographic

You can check infographic with additional data from this year.

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