Even though this entire platform uses Python, I simply couldn't miss the opportunity to open up this dev blog with some coder humor.
After nearly 7 weeks of a full-out sprint to build up the custom functionality needed which resulted in hundreds of commits to GitHub, Make Echoes is ready to support more users.
As with most finish lines in life, this is just another starting line.
This is the start of where this tool gets it's time to see the light of day which is a big moment for any product. No longer is this tool simply for the incredibly generous test streamers that we were working with through the initial development. (Test streamers, I've said it privately, I'll say it again here publicly; Thank you for everything you did. Each of you made a meaningful recommendation or note. Your feedback lead me to create more features in hopes of solving the problem of generating YouTube content from your streams in a fast and efficient manner.)
With the Alpha release the following core functionality has been completed:
This is no small feat as a solo programmer. There were more than a few times where I was frustrated, annoyed, overwhelmed and/or upset about how things were going. That said, this project, this customer base, this community of content consumers, all continued to push me toward completion.
Every time I would speak with someone about this project and then show them the videos that it was outputting automatically and the shocked expressions I received were a sign I was developing something potentially universally useful.
Now here we are 47 days after a Twitch whisper started all this, two approvals from Google/YouTube and one from the team at Twitch with a functional software as a service application available for purchase.
I'm writing this less than 16 hours before the Alpha sale goes live and I still don't know what kind of response this is going to get. Maybe there are 5 people who see the vision that this product has and are willing to pay to try it out. Maybe all 100 seats sell. Maybe the waitlist fills to an insane level.
All I can do as a coder and, in this instance, as an entrepreneur is put this out there and let the market decide whether or not it's worthy of finding a customer base.
On a technical front what's up next for Make Echoes:
Depending on how this launch goes, there may be additional to-dos added to my list.
I also want to start working on the next set of features.
First up, is the streamer requested email notifications of when the video has been uploaded with a link that'll take them to the right page in their YouTube account so they can do any updating/editing to it when it's ready. This would eliminate them have to check back in on their YouTube channel and hope that Make Echoes had finished its work.
Also this next batch of features that will be developed includes the most frequently requested feature: the ability for a streamer to allow certain usernames to submit clips from their chatroom as well as their moderators.
My intention for this blog is to keep it fairly tight around just what I'm working on, what I've deployed and what's up next. Since this isn't my full time job, there may be some irregularity in how all this happens so consider this your warning as there may be times with a week or so between posts.
But first thing's first, a silent moment of celebration as the initial prototype build is complete and it's time to do the necessary listening, learning and building to allow this to grow Make Echoes into a full-featured 1.0 release in the coming months.
There will be failures. There will be mistakes. It's part of the process. If in the end this helps someone along their content creation journey, it will have succeeded as a utility. Here's hoping Make Echoes lives up to the potential that so many see in it.
