Product Design & Development

PODCombined: Print-on-Demand Profit Comparison Tool

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Problem & Solution

15 Minutes to 30 Seconds

Print on Demand sellers manually compare profit margins across providers using spreadsheets. Each calculation takes 15-20 minutes and becomes outdated as pricing shifts.

PODCombined delivers real profit margins across 100+ provider-product-region combinations in under 30 seconds.

Design & Development

Foundation-First Development with AI Acceleration

Design

  • User interface and comparison tool layouts
  • Input flows and result visualisation
  • Responsive design across devices

Development

  • Frontend (React, Next.js)
  • Data scraping and JSON processing
  • Multi-currency support and conversion
  • Deployment to production

Built in 3 weeks using AI as development accelerator. Design foundations and component architecture came first, creating stable constraints for implementation. Technical decisions favoured simplicity: CSV files over databases, USD-only storage with display conversion, proven stack over experimental tools.

Outcome

305 Users in First 2 Months

Live: podcombined.com

Timeline: 3 weeks concept → live deployment

Result: 305 users in first 2 months, with sellers using it daily for margin calculations.

Learning: Shipping fast meant learning fast. The product improved because real people used it, revealing friction points that planning never would have anticipated. Early release beats perfect planning.

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