From side project to working product - the story behind efIQo

posted 2 min read

June 2, 2025.

Just a random Monday for most people, but not for me. It was a day I launched efIQo - a product I have been working on since the 1st of December, 2024.

efIQo is a study tool that allows users to create, share and learn with personalized flashcards and quizzes, it also doubles as a peer-learning platform where you can learn with flashcards and quizzes created by other learners.

I have launched a number of "side projects" in the past but efIQo felt so different, from the ideation to development to the beta version and the stable version. Every line of code, every thought process, every logic and everything between.

The whole idea for me on efIQo started as far back as 2022/2023, a bit before chatGPT burst on to the scene, as a freshman in uni, I wanted to build something that I could use as a study tool. Yeah, efIQo was born out of my personal need.

I had majority of the logic down already, some of the code I wrote back then in my friend's room still exists in the codebase to this day, but I could not transform it into a working product at the time. why? not only because I did not have enough skills but I was waiting for everything to be perfect, I wanted it to be the next big thing on the internet. poor me.

I suspended development for a while after that, I honed my craft and built a few more personal projects and with the little experience I had, I realized that learning is not just by tutorials, reading docs, and taking courses but by building real-world projects.

I went back to "ace it" (what efIQo was before rebranding), dusted the cobwebs, reviewed the existing code and got back to building. I used X (Twitter) as an accountability partner, sharing my progress along the way, building in public, such a thing.

I launched the beta version of efIQo, that version only had the flashcard creation feature, I later integrated the quiz feature, then the authentication feature, then the storage feature. I also shared my progress on peerlist, with my accountability partners, I just kept building bits and bobs, feature by feature, code by code.

With those features, I launched the efIQo 1.0, what could not be achieved about a year or two ago was done in 6 months. How? A change of mindset - I was waiting to build the next big thing that would shake the internet, rather, I just built something born out of my personal need because I could.

At the moment, I am currently working on integrating AI into efIQo, users will be able to create flashcards and quizzes by providing the course/subject and specific topic.

Some journey it has been.

The only way is up from here, till then, let us keep building.

want to level up your study game? sign up at https://efiqo-app.web.app

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Wow Perfect start!

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