[Post Mortem] The one-week update that last four months

Hi! I’m Pierre Benayoun and I’m an French indie Dev. I work on Activity tracking on android since more than one year.

I work since February on an android app named « Fit Plus« . The purpose is to use all data collected by Google Fit to give specific nice data and analysis like « You broke your walking record, congrats! ».

There was a prototype online, but I worked on a new version which could give more interesting data since end of March. Initially the update should take one week. But finishing this version takes lot more time than I thought.

At last, I uploaded the new version last week… four month later.

And now?

So here is a post about that four months and the challenges I have to overcome.

This post is made from a post on Medium but I cannot yet make any external link so I will make a comment by challenge. Any feedback appreciated!

When you start a journey to the unknown, don’t expect be back for lunchtime

Let’s resume the facts

• I work since the beginning of 2014 on Activity Tracking on Android


• Early 2015 I decide to play why Google fit API. This little software let you and your app get (and play) with data monitor by Google Fit.


• First step: Fit Plus a little app which display all activities monitored by Google Fit and some statistics.


• At the end of march I finalised a little prototype and I expect to deliver an upgrade the week after. Finally, the update will be ready at the end of July: four months later.

So whyyyy ?

First of all a startup/indie app is a project where unknown is the rule. The Lean Startup method exists (amongst other things) for this reason. You cannot control your agenda and here are Six challenges I had to overcome that explains this four month delay.