I've been using Basecamp for a while, and find the Check-In feature very useful to get a sense of what everybody is doing. I was looking to build a side project, and figured this feature could be useful for a lot of other companies that either don't use Basecamp, or don't have other good communication tools beside email.
It's my first side project that I am launching. It's quite a simple app that I built in roughly two weeks. Here's the result: https://www.letscheckin.co/
How it works:
You create a check-in, set the schedule, and the emails will send to you at the set schedule (in the subscribers timezone). At the same time you will get a separate email with the answers from the last period. This way don't have to log in to the app to view all the answers (but you obviously can).
Tech:
It's built on Ruby on Rails using ActionMailbox with Postmark for sending and parsing incoming emails. I've followed Chris's tutorial on how to use ActionMailbox (https://gorails.com/episodes/action-mailbox-rails-6 and https://gorails.com/episodes/save-action-mailbox-html-emails...). I run a cron-job every hour that runs a background job that checks if there are any subscribers set to receive a check-in in that hour (in their timezone), and schedule the mail with deliver_later(wait_until: <send_time>)
Work to do:
- Make a better landing page - work on the design and messaging.
- Comments on answers (it will more interesting to answer if you know you get some feedback)
Evolve the product:
- This could also become a way for companies to send announcements to the entire company.
Feedback
- Could you see this being useful as a self-standing product, or does it only belong in the context of an app like Basecamp?
- How would you price it? I went for a per-seat subscription as I wanted to make it affordable for small companies. These do end up being quite expensive for larger companies, so I am thinking about how to make it fixed price tiers.
- Suggestions for the landing page?
- Suggestions for the app itself?