Ask HN: Creating a group chat app MVP, worth it to repurpose existing app? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Creating a group chat app MVP, worth it to repurpose existing app?

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I want to create a mobile chat app MVP (apparently the world needs yet another one!).

Basic functionality is various group chats/channels and the ability to DM other users, push notification when mentioned or receiving DM. There is a little more to it that makes it worth using, but the core is the chat/DM

Now since there are 1000s of chat apps with this basic functionality, I am thinking is it possible to just get permission from someone, who has group chat app that works but isn't popular, to repurpose their code with some modification instead of building something from scratch? Why reinvent the wheel? I want to test some assumptions before going full on building mode.

Any problems with this approach? Has anyone done this? Any ideas of getting this done would be great also (pls see profile if you want to DM).

If you had an app and someone approached you like this, what would you think?

About me: I was not technical (but know some basics) cofounder of a webapp and led the creation of 1 mobile app.

As always with using existing solutions, it will probably be a very quick shortcut to get you mostly there. Now, the ability to go from "there" to where you want to be (customizing the app to fit your exact needs) is probably going to be where the headaches lies.

You say you are not technical, so I guess it would go something as this: You buy an app from something like flippa etc. Possibly for a low price as well since you don't care about revenue. You hire someone to modify it for you so that it fits your need. Now if you just want to put it to your brand, that would be relatively easy. But say you have some custom features in mind, like sharing documents or whatever is your USP. Your programmer, who did not assess the app in the first place, might find it's actually crappy and or complicated code and is going to spend weeks on very simple things. Same for fixing bugs.

So ultimately I would say: If you don't need to customise to test your platform at all, why do you need your own app for the mvp in the first place? Just use whatsapp group as a way to test your "diet support group startup". If you do need to customize it, then I would first find a programmer, and then discuss with him whether to do it from scratch or to buy some codebase, that your programmer is going to review. That said, I'm pretty sure group chat apps is a very common training app for programmers and they would be plenty of tutorials / bootstrap code to help him, without loosing control and understanding of the code.

I don't have a suggestion for how to achieve your goals here but please share if you find what you are seeking. I need the same thing. A couple years ago I looked at firebase and some other tools to do what you are trying, and none of the solutions available could do what I needed.

Why not Matrix.org & Modular.im or host your own Synapse server?

Is this just a rebranding of an existing chat app you're looking for?

Not a rebranding. I am looking for a way to not have to build the group/channel chat, DM, push notifications part as this part has been build hundreds of times already.

I want to modify/add something on that part in a way that creates value.

Does it need to be on both iOS & Android?

While testing on one might be easier, it does need to be on both. Most likely the first group of users would be in Bay Area, which does skew iOS, but it is a social app so I need android also.

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