Three weeks ago I was convinced VaultBay needed to handle multiple cars. I spent two weeks on it. Then I deleted everything and went back to single-car mode. This is what happened.
I know what you're thinking. Multi-car support is table stakes, right? And you're not wrong, in theory. Every car app does it. But here's the thing: I wasn't building for everyone. I was building for myself.
The Problem I Was Trying to Solve
I have two cars. A 2019 WRX and a 1988 E30. Both get used, both need tracking. So naturally, I thought VaultBay should handle both.
I sketched out the data model. Added a vehicles table. Rewrote the dashboard to cycle between cars. Built a selector dropdown. Spent evenings and a Wednesday or two on it.
It worked. Technically.
Then I actually used it.
The Realization
Turns out I was the only person who'd want this.
My use case is weird. Most people who care enough about their car to track every detail? They have one car. The one they actually care about. The daily driver that gets washed every weekend. The project that never ends but moves forward one part at a time.
The multi-car stuff added complexity everywhere. The UI got messier. The data model got messier. The onboarding flow, which I hadn't even started yet, got messier.
I kept asking myself: what problem am I actually solving here? The answer was my problem and only my problem, and I could just use two browser tabs.
What Actually Shipped Instead
I scrapped the multi-car branch on a Thursday. By that Sunday I had something better: a proper build log view.
Instead of juggling multiple cars, I focused on what a single-car owner actually needs. Timestamped entries. Photo uploads. Part history. Modifications tracked with dates and costs.
The WRX build log is 47 entries deep now. Every oil change, every detail, every time I noticed a new rattle. That's the stuff that matters to me. That's the stuff I want to remember.
I also fixed the image upload flow. That was broken for three weeks and I kept pushing it back because multi-car is more important. It wasn't. Users kept asking about photos. I kept saying coming soon. Now it's here.
What This Means For You
If you're waiting for multi-car support: it's not coming. At least not in the way I originally planned. Maybe someday if there's actual demand, but right now it would slow me down and make the app worse for the 90% of users who have one car they care about.
The lesson here is stupid simple and I keep relearning it:
Build what you actually need, not what you think users expect.
I knew better. I did it anyway. Two weeks of work down the drain. But I'd rather learn that on week eight than month eight.
VaultBay's next milestone is simple: actual beta users. Real people using it, not just me. That's the feedback that matters now.
Early access is open, grab a spot if you want to see where this goes.