I'm 15 and built a platform for developers to showcase WIP projects

Hi HN,

I'm a 15-year-old full-stack developer, and I recently built Codeown (https://codeown.space).

The problem I wanted to solve: GitHub is great for code, but not for showing the "journey" or the UI. LinkedIn is too corporate and noisy for raw, work-in-progress (WIP) dev projects. I wanted a dedicated, clean space where developers can just share what they are building, get feedback, and log their progress.

Tech Stack: > I built the frontend with React and handle auth via Clerk. I recently had to migrate my backend/DB off Railway's free tier (classic indie hacker struggle!), but it taught me a lot about deployment and optimization.

We just hit our first 5 real users today, and the community is slowly starting to form.

I’m still learning, and I know the performance and UI can be improved. I would absolutely love your brutal, honest feedback on:

The perceived performance (currently working on optimizing the React re-renders).

The core idea – is this something you would use to track your side projects?

Thanks for taking a look! Happy to answer any technical questions.

12 points | by amin2011 2 days ago

3 comments

  • junaid_97 1 day ago
    First of all: kudos on building this app. I think it's really impressive to build and showcase your project at such a young age.

    I'm actually a user of https://wip.co/ . I think it's quite similar to your project. You should check it out. Also, check out https://peerlist.io/

    Social platforms/marketplaces are genuinely difficult, cause it only works if you have enough users (both, demand and supply).

    Since it's your early projects (I'm assuming), I think you should built it purely for the sake of learning and feedback. Even if it doesn't work out, the experince is extremely valuable.

    Later - if you are serious about a sustainable project - I would recommend that you study your alternatives/competitors (such as the ones I just shared), and figure out what works for them and what are their users missing.

    :)

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    • amin2011 9 hours ago
      WIP and Peerlist to see how I can offer something unique. I'm building Codeown to learn, but seeing people actually post projects makes me want to take it to the next level. Thanks for the feedback!
  • aidenkt 1 day ago
    I really like your UI (cool typeface especially), my biggest problem so far just poking around is how I don't exactly see how this differs from say Twitter/X or Bluesky outside of being marketed as Developer focused. I think implementing more features that are specific to developers, such as integrating with Git repos, would be a great step toward making your platform more unique. For 15, this is very impressive.
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    • amin2011 1 day ago
      Thank you so much for the feedback! I'm glad you liked the UI and the typeface choice.

      You made a very valid point regarding the differentiation from X or Bluesky. My initial goal was to build the 'core' community feel first, but I completely agree that Git integration is the logical next step.

      I’m currently looking into the GitHub API to allow users to pull their repository stats or latest commits directly into their project logs. This would make the 'Build in Public' process much more automated and unique to our field.

      Thanks for the encouragement it means a lot to me as I iterate on this!

  • moomoo11 1 day ago
    good luck!

    maybe you can make this into a social network, and entice people to keep posting.

    if people see something interesting, maybe they want to work on it together and it becomes a job platform.

    like a more interesting Ask HN

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    • amin2011 9 hours ago
      Thanks for the feedback