Building in public

I recently shared a rough MVP with some potential users for a Chrome Extension I’m building that helps property buyers make smarter decisions. The first version was a checklist — scraping and augmenting listing data, highlighting what was missing, and automating questions for estate agents. The feedback? While helpful, it was overwhelming. Users wanted help understanding the data, not just being told what they need to message the agent about. They needed clarity and confidence — not just more info. It reminded me of being 15 in school being taught how to write essays: PEE – Point, Evidence, Explanation. I was showing the Point and the Evidence… but missed the Explanation (analysis). It turns out, users first need analysis: “What does this mean for me?” Only after that do they want the evidence and deep dive on to each checklist item. So now, I’m building a dashboard to help users see what’s important at a glance — and then dig in if they want to. How do you approach synthesising data i...

I've decided to start building in public, sharing what I'm doing and the lessons I've learned with others. After being previously burned by buying property where I wasn't given the complete information on the property, I came up with the idea of Vesta Property Checker.  Initially, it was a chrome extension with a feature-by-feature checklist that evaluates property listings for completeness and highlights missing critical information via a freeium model. In doing so, it enhances transparency and assists buyers in making more informed decisions about the biggest risk purchase of their lives. It then had the option to automate a message to the buying agent asking about all the missing information from the agent. As well as what was in the listing, I started build my own APIs,  pulling information like crime data for the local area and creating a 'crime score' based on the general population of the area.  I find other paid APIs that I could utilise to pull in more ...