Why I created Baskee?

Why I created Baskee?

Few days ago, I released my first Android app Baskee built with Xamarin and F#.

baskee store preview

https://www.kimsereylam.com/baskee

In this post, I would like to share with you the most common questions my friends asked me and I hope it will help you
understand better why Baskee is useful for you!

This post answers the following questions:

1. Where did the idea come from?
2. What are the problems Baskee solves?
3. Is Baskee free?
4. How many people worked on it?
5. What stack is it built on?
6. If you had one advice for new developers to start what would it be?

1. Where did the idea come from?

I was walking at the supermarket and saw Nescafe coffee tin selling at 6 pounds.
I am a big coffee consumer so I regularly buy coffee and I knew other days I did no pay for 6 pounds but I couldn’t remember how much I used to pay and even in which shop it was cheaper.
I tried to check online but there was no network at the supermarket. So I didn’t get it and continue to shop. But that experience brought to me a sentiment of insecurity;

is the coffee overpriced or all products are overpriced?

That’s where I knew I had to create Baskee which will help me save all the prices I paid in the past.

Now when I go to the supermarket, I open Baskee and directly check based on what I paid in the past, if an item is overpriced or not. Baskee clears all my doubts and allows me to make the best decision.

Get Baskee here

2. What are the problems Baskee solves?

Baskee solves problems gravitating toward groceries shopping.

The first problem is about remembering how much you paid in the past in other stores. Do you know how much you paid for article X last week? Last month? In shop Y?
By saving everything, Baskee gives you a quick access to all prices through the search.

search Baskee

The second problem is about knowing the details, the composition of your baskets. Everytime you buy groceries, do you know how much sweet things you spend on? How much meat? How much vegetables? Do you know how it affects the total price of your basket? That’s another problem solved by Baskee.

composition basket in Baskee

The third problem is knowing the bigger picture. How much do you spend monthly and compare each months to see how your spending habits change. Knowing your spending habits allow you to control it.

bigger picture Baskee

Many more problems are solved by Baskee but those three were the driving moto of Baskee.
And I believe Baskee has accomplish its part of the deal!

Get Baskee here

3. Is Baskee free?

Yes! It is 100% free. I started to build it as an application useful for me but I knew it will be useful for others who care about how much they pay and if they are getting the cheapest price at the supermarket.


Get Baskee here

4. How many people worked on it?

I built Baskee from the ground up. I love building product and I believe all developers should try out to build a complete product and deliver it.
I concieved every pieces, drew the design, coded the app, created all graphic arts and handled all releases.
It takes time, efforts, consistency and perseverance to start from nothing and end up with a full working product but those values are extremely rewarding.

The development of Baskee took about four months. I worked on it on my spare time as I am a full time developer employed in UK.
The four months include all the process from design (brainstorm/draft), to development (code/test) to release and promotion (website/art).

Get Baskee here

5. What stack is it built on?

Baskee is built with Xamarin.Android, Xamarin.Forms coded in F#.
The data are stored locally with Sqlite

Xamarin is a no brainer if like me you come from the .NET ecosystem.
It allows to code in a known language like C#.
For me I choose to use F# because I am working full time on F# and I really love it.
The code end up being very clean and small, very readable and maintainable.
If you want to start F#, I have few tutorials on my blog. Feel free to have a look!

Get Baskee here

6. If you had one advice for new developers to start what would it be?

If you have an idea, dont be afraid to bring it to the world. Don’t listen to what other peoplw say about technology stacks, as long as you know what to do and have a vision, any tools that you can use to bring this vision to life is a good tool. I bielieve a good developer is a do-er, a developer who makes thing happen. So whether you want to build for whichever platform, with whichever language and framework don’t really matter as long as your product is sound!

Get Baskee here

Conclusion

The journey of creating and promoting Baskee has been an extremely rewarding adventure.
I learnt the difficulties of creating a mobile app and the difficulties of promoting it.
Coming up with ideas, concepts and design is not an easy task and learning frameworks to build the app is far from easy.
But what I learnt was that once you have a vision and stick to it,
the path get quickly cleared and you can achieve what has to be done to deliver your product.
I hope you like this blog post as much as I enjoyed writting it, thanks for the support!
If you have any question, hit me on Twitter @Kimserey_Lam.
See you next time!

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