Systematic FYI

Inspiration

My wife asked for a flashcard app to study system design while preparing for interviews at companies like Google and Apple. To our shock, there were generic flashcard apps like Anki, opensource decks that were difficult to install, a plethora of mock system design interview apps - but ZERO apps that simply had existing flashcards for questions you might face about databases, networking, and API design.

What it does

Its 6 flashcard decks , 3 free and 3 paid.

The free 3 decks are on databases, networking, and API design with simple questions like "What is a join in a database".

The 3 paid decks cover more advanced concepts on databases, networking, and API design, such as "what is a log-structured merge tree" or "what is BGP internet routing".

The goal is to create a simple review of key concepts for system design interviews.

How we built it

I did a vlog on building it separate from my final video submission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyhwmgO40BQ&t=1s

But basically, bolt.new did a great job on the first pass. There was a flicker that got fixed quick. Once I added RevenueCat, I did switch to Cursor since RevenueCat does not work in Expo Go, but all the UI was built in bolt.new , except I then switched to RevenueCat paywall.

Challenges we ran into

MInor fixups to the build were required with npx expo doctor and removing a camera dependency inexplicably added.

As mentioned, had to use a development client to add RevenueCat which didnt make sense in bolt, did it in Cursor.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The app is extremely simple but IMO is already valuable. The advanced questions were genuinely tough and useful for FAANG interviews. The app looks very good after just one pass. There is tons of room for improvement with things like gamification.

What we learned

bolt.new is fantastic for getting the first pass of UI screens done.

There's still pain points as the project grows . The Github sync makes this ok can you can always export and work outside of bolt.

What's next for Systematic FYI

System design prep is a very competitive space to do marketing in, so my main goal was just to see how much organic traffic I get as one of the few apps in the app store with this simple, clear positioning (system design flaschards). If it gets users and some retention, I will add more flashcard decks, gamification, etc

Built With

• bolt.new
• expo.io
• revenuecat