Build in public
ClaimPixels, week 1: what we built, what broke, what is next
This is the first of a series where we report what we build and what goes wrong, with real numbers. After one week, ClaimPixels has a working wall, a waitlist, a review process and no customers. Here is exactly where things stand.
Where things stand
- A wall of 1,250 by 800 pixels, one million in total, that holds up to 10,000 blocks of 10 by 10 pixels.
- Two founder blocks that belong to the online stores we also run, CometSIM and VexoKey. They are labelled as ours on their profile pages and we do not count them as customers.
- A waitlist for the day orders open, and a separate list for the Memory Wall.
- More than 250 automated tests, some of them run against a real Postgres engine rather than a mock.
- A review process: a person looks at every image before it goes live, and a block that is rejected is refunded in full.
No one has bought a block yet. Payments are not open, so the honest customer count is zero. We would rather start the series with that number than with a made-up one.
Three things that broke
Building in public means saying what went wrong. These three were small, and each one taught us something.
A sign-up that erased what you told us. If someone joined the waitlist twice with the same address, the second sign-up replaced the first answers (block size, price, a note) with blanks. We found it while testing the live page, wrote a failing test first, and fixed it so that a newer answer replaces an older one but a missing answer never erases one.
A campaign link that broke sign-ups. A link tagged like ?utm_source=Product Hunt, with capital letters and a space, made the sign-up fail, because our server accepts only plain tags. The page now cleans the tag before it sends it.
Preview builds that went red. After we replaced a database key, every preview build of the site failed with a missing-setting error, because one environment still lacked the new key. The real site kept running the whole time. We added the setting to the right environment and the previews turned green.
What we measure and what we promise
A block on ClaimPixels is a display placement: your image and link on a public wall, a page of your own, and a click count that filters out bots. We do not promise traffic, ranking or sales, and the Terms say so in plain words.
What happens next
- A new post every two days. Next: how the price ladder works, with the real numbers.
- Orders open when card payments are ready. If you want one email on that day, the waitlist is on the home page.
- The Memory Wall opens later, after its safeguards are finished. Here is how it will work.
Questions people ask
Is ClaimPixels open for orders?
Not yet. Card payments are not open. You can join the waitlist and we will email you once, on the day orders open.
Who runs ClaimPixels?
Furvexo LLC, a New Mexico limited liability company that also runs online stores. The first two blocks on the wall belong to those stores and are labelled as ours.
Do you promise traffic to the blocks?
No. A block is a display placement with its own page and a click count. How many people visit depends on how many people we and you bring to the wall.