Hey! Welcome to the FlexeetClub journey. This project is not just a tech venture but a tale of friendship, innovation, and the thrilling ride of creating something from a casual conversation. Grab a cuppa, and let's dive into how FlexeetClub came into existence.
The Genesis
It all began during a usual banter with my buddy Akshay Agrawal amidst the COVID lockdown in February 2021. The idea was simple yet intriguing - make tweets look cool and shareable across platforms. And that’s how FlexeetClub was born from a blend of 'Flex' and 'Tweet'. Our motto was simple: Flex your tweets with Flexeet.
The Build
Building FlexeetClub was like solving a fun puzzle. The core was built using ReactJS sprinkled with some Tailwind CSS magic for styling. The landing page was crafted with Gatsby to ensure good SEO, while the app itself was a playground of Canvas Technologies provided by KonvaJS. Our backend was a neat setup with NodeJS and ExpressJS, acting as a wrapper to Twitter API for fetching tweets.
Challenges & Triumphs
Oh boy, the challenges were real, but each one was a stepping stone. The goal was to ensure consistent image output across various browsers and devices. A peculiar challenge was managing the font size to accommodate different tweet lengths within a fixed canvas size. We crafted a clever solution by creating a hidden DOM element off the viewport. In this concealed arena, we iteratively adjusted the font size of the tweet text until it snugly fit within our designated bounds. Once the perfect font size was found, we utilized the html2canvas npm package to convert this DOM element into an image.
Emojis, those cute little devils, posed another layer of complexity. Different devices and platforms have their own rendition of emojis, which could potentially skew the uniform look we were going for. The fix was to replace all emojis with PNG images within the text in our hidden DOM element before the conversion to an image, ensuring a consistent look across the board. For this emoji conversion, we employed the react-twemoji npm package to get the job done.
KonvaJS was our canvas buddy, aiding us with its easy-to-use canvas APIs for the image generation part of the process. This meticulous handling of text and emojis was a dance between precision and aesthetics, and oh, it was a fulfilling dance!
The User Experience
User-friendliness was our priority. Paste a tweet link, choose the size, pick a color mode, and voila! Your tweet is now a beautiful image, ready to be shared far and wide. And it all happened in a swift 5-10 seconds.
Templates & Customization
We offered a variety of templates for users to play around with:
- Imageflex: Add a background image either randomly or based on a keyword search.
- Gradientflex: Generate random gradient backgrounds.
- Colorflex: Pick a color for the background.
- Borderflex: Minimalistic design with a border around the tweet.
The Launch & The Love
The support and love we received post-launch were overwhelming. The community's validation, especially from industry influencers, was heartwarming.
Our organic reach was a testimony to FlexeetClub's resonance with the audience. With no paid marketing, we garnered over 1,000 followers on Instagram. One of our reels skyrocketed with more than 500,000+ views, and thousands cherished it with likes.
The influence didn't stop at our circles; it rippled across the digital realm. Industry mavericks like beerbiceps, Jay Kapoor, and Abnux admired what we built. Their recognition was a morale booster that fueled our zeal.
The numbers were a sight to behold - more than 7,000 images crafted using FlexeetClub in just the initial two months. The first week post-launch saw a flurry of activity with over 1,000 users diving in. Each image created, every new user, and the unending support from the community was a token of trust in what we built, a stride towards the impact we envisioned.
FlexeetClub is more than a project; it's a journey where passion met purpose, a tale we continue to etch, one pixel at a time.
The Impact
FlexeetClub was more than just a project; it was a launchpad. It not only provided us with a wonderful learning experience but also opened up new opportunities. One of the most significant milestones post-FlexeetClub was landing my first job at Procedure Tech. During my interaction with Ulhas, the CTO of Procedure Tech, I showcased FlexeetClub, and within a mere 15-20 minutes of our conversation, I was offered a position. It was a proud moment, emphasizing the real-world impact a project like FlexeetClub could have. The journey, the challenges, and the triumphs we faced together during this project have been nothing short of amazing, and it continues to inspire me to explore, learn, and create.
The Transition
As of 2023, due to the Twitter API pricing changes, we have decided to shut down the FlexeetClub application. We are grateful to all the users who have been a part of this journey.