ProductLog: The Platform I Built for Myself First

I work on several projects at different stages. I needed a place to record the work as it happened, without turning every update into launch copy.

When I wanted to document ongoing work rather than write a polished launch post or a milestone tweet, I could not find a place that made sense.

X is real-time and algorithmic. Progress that doesn't perform gets buried. Product Hunt is for launches, not for the year of work before them. Indie Hackers was the closest thing, but it has drifted toward a format that rewards storytelling over honest ongoing documentation.

My personal blog can carry a launch post, but I do not want one project’s continuous updates to take over the site. That is why I needed a durable project log.

What I wanted was simple: a permanent home for the work itself. Updates, roadmaps, decisions, wrong turns. Not optimized for virality. Not dependent on a launch moment. Just the record.

What I Built

ProductLog platform is a community for makers who build in public. You document your project as it happens — what you shipped, what you changed, what you abandoned and why. Other makers follow along, ask questions, share their own work.

The feed is chronological.

The ProductLog Stories section is where I publish longer pieces about the build. That is where I have written about why I built it the way I did, the strategic mistake I almost made, and how I am approaching the cold-start problem.

Why I Have a Reason to Keep Building This

I have one hour a day. No external funding. A family. The standard conditions under which most side projects quietly disappear.

There is no guarantee that ProductLog will continue. But I expect to want to document future projects too. That place is now a platform I own and control. The reason to use it does not disappear just because the initial excitement does.

There is also something clarifying about being your own first user. Every friction point I hit as a maker using ProductLog is a bug I have to fix. Every feature I wish existed is a feature I should probably build. The feedback loop is immediate and personal.

What It Has to Do With Everything Else I Write About

I write on this site about building in the AI era — what it actually looks and feels like to ship products when AI is part of the workflow, not just the subject of the conversation.

ProductLog is part of that. I work on it for about an hour a day, without a team, with AI tools as part of the workflow. They do not do the work on their own, but they make some steps I might otherwise defer more manageable.

For anyone who wants to document the work beyond launch day, ProductLog is here.