Product Experiment
Climbing Progress Tracker
A product experiment exploring how AI-assisted development can accelerate product validation.
A lightweight climbing tracker designed to help indoor and outdoor climbers manage projects, track attempts, and monitor progression across different climbing locations without relying on gym-specific integrations.
Overview
This project explores how AI-assisted product development can reduce the distance between idea, validation, and iteration.
The goal was to identify a real problem experienced by climbers, design a focused solution, and rapidly validate the concept through a functional MVP.
Rather than building a feature-heavy climbing platform, the project focused on a single question:
How can climbers easily track progression on routes across different gyms and outdoor climbing locations?
The Challenge
Tracking climbing projects should not depend on where you climb
Climbers rarely climb in a single location. Many split their time between multiple climbing gyms, outdoor crags, and different climbing communities, often working on several projects simultaneously.
While existing climbing apps offer route tracking and activity logging, most depend on integrations with specific gyms, climbing databases, or proprietary route systems. This creates a fragmented experience where access to route information is limited to locations already supported by the platform.
- Routes are only available in supported gyms or databases.
- Climbers cannot easily create and track their own routes.
- Indoor and outdoor projects are often managed separately.
- Progress becomes fragmented across locations and tools.
- Valuable climbing history is difficult to maintain over time.
For climbers focused on progression, the route itself is what matters, not whether it belongs to a particular gym ecosystem.
Product Opportunity
What if climbers could create and manage any route themselves?
Instead of relying on integrations, route databases, or gym-specific partnerships, the opportunity was to create a flexible workflow that works everywhere.
- Take a photo of a route.
- Add the climbing location.
- Create a project.
- Track attempts over time.
- Record successful sends.
By removing the dependency on external route databases, the experience becomes universal, allowing climbers to track progression across any gym, climbing wall, or outdoor crag using the same workflow.
The Solution
A climbing tracker built around progression
The MVP focuses on helping climbers manage projects from first attempt to successful send. The experience was intentionally designed to be lightweight and fast, making it easy to capture information immediately after climbing sessions.
- Route capture through photos.
- Location management.
- Project creation.
- Attempt tracking.
- Send tracking.
- Progress monitoring.
Product Showcase
Defining the MVP
Focusing on the smallest version capable of validating the idea
The first phase focused on identifying the minimum feature set required to test the product hypothesis. Rather than building a complete climbing ecosystem, the MVP concentrated on one core user need:
Helping climbers track progression on individual routes regardless of location.
- Creating projects.
- Saving route photos.
- Adding locations.
- Tracking attempts.
- Recording sends.
AI-Assisted Product Development
Exploring a faster path from concept to validation
This project also served as an experiment in modern product development workflows. The objective was not simply to generate code faster, but to explore how AI tools could accelerate the journey from product idea to real-world validation.
V0
V0 was used to transform product requirements, user flows, and interface concepts into functional UI components. This enabled rapid exploration of layouts, navigation structures, and interaction patterns while significantly reducing implementation time.
Vercel
The MVP was deployed early using Vercel, making it possible to test the product in a real environment rather than relying exclusively on static prototypes. This shortened feedback loops and accelerated validation.
Codex
Once the MVP was functional, Codex was used throughout the iteration process to improve overall product quality.
- Responsive behavior.
- UI consistency.
- Component structure.
- Navigation improvements.
- Feature enhancements.
- Bug fixing.
Workflow
Design Evolution
From functional MVP to polished product experience
While the MVP successfully validated the concept, it also revealed opportunities to improve usability, hierarchy, and visual quality.
- Visual hierarchy improvements.
- Accessibility considerations.
- Interaction design.
- Navigation clarity.
- Component consistency.
- Responsive optimization.
Live MVP
Product Status
The MVP is currently live and continues to evolve through ongoing product experimentation, design refinement, and feature exploration.
Key Learnings
Product thinking becomes more important as development becomes faster
As implementation time decreases, prioritization, problem framing, and product decision-making become increasingly valuable.
Validation should happen early
Testing a functional MVP generates stronger insights than relying exclusively on static prototypes.
Designers can own more of the product lifecycle
Modern AI-assisted workflows create opportunities for Product Designers to move beyond traditional handoff models and take a more active role in discovery, validation, and iteration.
Next steps
- Polish the MVP to reflect the final product experience.
- Improve UI consistency and interaction details.
- Validate new iterations through real-world testing.