One post. One call.
One community.

In 2021 I was teaching myself to build native apps with no-code tools. Not to launch a product. To understand what was possible. Every app I shipped taught me something. I was collecting evidence.

Then I saw Alex Bilstein posting weekly UX event roundups on LinkedIn. People loved it. They commented, reposted, consistently engaged. I spotted the pattern, sent him a message, and we had a 30-minute call. For me it was a validated idea, and asking would cost me nothing.

He already had the events in Airtable. I created a Figma draft and in Bravo Studio, connected the database in an hour. Built the app in 16 hours. Published live on both the App Store and Google Play. The whole first version: 22 hours, no developers, no sprint planning, no waiting.

It launched as UX Events Weekly on Product Hunt with 5 upvotes. It listed events. Nothing else. That was the point. Mission accomplished.

I moved on. I had other products to build, skills to sharpen. UX Events ran on Airtable and good intentions, and I barely touched it after launch.

Alex moved on to healthcare work, I took over the project, changed the name to UX/UI Events, and added notifications. Half a day of work. In all of 2022, I spent four and a half hours on the app total.

By November 2023 it had 1,182 downloads, growing at roughly 37 users a month with no marketing spend and almost no updates. Simple product. Real problem. People found it.

But 1,000+ users is also the moment to stop and actually listen.

The app was a good event list. The gap was everything else those users were looking for, and not finding anywhere.

Three needs came back clearly from the interviews: help me finish my bootcamp, help me network with other designers, help me find a junior job.

The research team proposed a social-first direction: feeds, messaging, location filters. I redirected. The competitors already owned social. What they did not have was a focused learning and career resource hub for junior designers. That was the gap.

The original app addressed none of the three needs. It was a good event list. The redesign could only be that precise because the research had been that specific.

When research recommends a direction, the product decision is still yours. That is not a limitation of the research. That is how it is supposed to work.

By May 2026: 25 events, 1,504 tickets, 2,157 Luma members. In just over two years.

The newsletter runs weekly: 6,847 subscribers total across Substack (3,724) and LinkedIn (3,123), 70+ issues, featured in four other design publications. Events, resources, jobs, expert insights. Free. Every Monday for over a year.

For a period, Sebastian Kozicki supported the app by manually adding new events: creating images, managing data, and updating the database. That process now runs through n8n. I publish or archive events based on what I think will matter most to the community.

All of it runs on one stack. Figma, Bravo Studio, Airtable, Luma, and now with n8n for automating event sync (finally removed one task!). One person.

The community grew because the content was useful and the format was consistent long enough. Nothing else. No growth hacks. No virality strategy. Show up every week with something valuable.

In 2025, Miranda Slayter ran Why Before UI: a design challenge where I asked how her community members would redesign the Resource section of the UX/UI Hub app. Too much content, not enough structure. Ten designers entered.

I reviewed ten solutions for UX thinking, no-code feasibility, and real user alignment. Neer's solution won — chosen for structural clarity and realistic implementation. Inna's and Maya's proposals will shape the visual direction.

Ten people who had been using the app for free showed up to improve it. That is what happens when a community trusts you enough to invest in your product.

For me it was also a design critique session at scale. I evaluated real proposals against real constraints, gave structured feedback, and made a product decision from the results. The next version of the Resources section will be built from their work.

Ship the simple version first. Not because good enough is fine, but because you cannot design for needs you have not yet heard.

I built a useful event list. Then I waited. Then 1,000 people told me what they actually needed. When the research came back recommending social features, I pushed back — because the data also showed what competitors already had. The rebuild was better because of that sequence and that decision, not despite them.

The 22-hour first version was not a shortcut. It was a research method.

A comment on a post. A 30-minute call with a stranger. 22 hours of building. Five years of showing up. Not bad for an event list with 5 upvotes.

The roadmap continues to evolve based on what the community actually needs, with AI helping me execute faster, not decide what to build.

I'm already creating AI-assisted workflows to edit Hub Meet recordings, summarize community feedback, and accelerate content production.

Monetization is the open question. The Hub has operated free since day one. In August 2025, the first paid newsletter + in-app banner sponsor changed that briefly. $47. One month. One deal. Small proof that the model works. Banners in the app averaged 0.26% CTR, more than double the industry standard. The infrastructure exists. The community clicks. The timing is a decision, not a technical limitation.