First launch ever: building NoTrace in public, breaking it, fixing it
Hey everyone, I'm Damn_It_Rabbit, and this is the first product I've ever launched. I'm learning as I go: build something, watch it break, fix it, repeat.
What NoTrace is: anonymous voice rooms and random 1:1 chat with strangers. No sign-up, no video, nothing stored. You get a random name every visit, and everything disappears when you leave.
Some honest things from the last few weeks:
- I built it solo, with Claude Code, and it runs on free tiers. The domain is the only thing I've paid for (And obviously for Claude pro).
- Real bugs I shipped and then fixed: pressing Back threw people into the intro slides again, phones showed two END CALL buttons during a call, and one misclick on REPORT counted as a real report. Reports now need a confirmation, and each person can report someone only once per room (And trust me a lot many more).
- Early on, matching broke in production because the server dropped people whose tab was in the background. I learned more about heartbeats and reconnects that week than I expected to.
- The hardest part isn't the tech. It's how an anonymous space stays kind without a moderation team. My answer so far: the first two people in a room become its mods, time on stage earns mod status, and enough reports from the room remove anyone automatically, mods included. I don't know yet if that holds up with real crowds.
Where I'd love help:
1. Try a voice room or a 1:1 call and tell me if audio fails to connect. Some networks block direct connections and I haven't tested many real ones yet.
2. Which rooms are missing? There are 25 right now.
3. Would room-run moderation work on you, or would you break it?
It's 18+, and it's free. Break it, tell me how, and I'll fix it.
~Damnn_It_Rabbit
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