3 Apps. 3 Months.
One Snapback Story.
On January 6, I was laid off from a company I’d grown with for nearly a decade. I had just wrapped a call about a project I was excited to lead, and five minutes later, I was packing up my digital desk.
I felt defeated until a friend reminded me, “The opportunity to reinvent yourself doesn’t come often. Use it wisely.”
So I did.
I set a new career goal: to spend my days doing what I love—and prove I could build more than just beautiful decks and strategy docs. I’d been great at my job: systems, storytelling, structure. But I’d never made the space to build things for me. My entire portfolio lived behind someone else’s login and served someone else’s goals.
So I flipped the script.
I set a challenge for myself:
Build and launch three apps in three months.
A public experiment in creative momentum. A way to sharpen my product marketing muscles, showcase original thinking, and make something from scratch while working full-time, raising a toddler, and adjusting to a new role.
Each app solves a problem I’ve actually lived through as a mom, a maker, and a marketer.
This isn’t a startup story.
It’s a snapback story.
Not to a pre-baby body.
To a rhythm of creation and confidence no one can take away.
About the Project
Quay is building three lightweight web apps that solve personal but universal problems as she learns product marketing skills to grow her career:
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Reality Rank: A social predictions app for reality TV fans. Rank contestants, drop takes, and share story cards.
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Bowl Spinner: A bowl generator that helps users prep meals faster using ingredients they have on hand.
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Wash Day: A natural hair journal and social community for care tracking and style inspiration.
Every App is a Snapback Story
Each app Quay is building helps her reclaim a part of herself that was sidelined by career shifts, parenting, or burnout.
Here’s the story behind each build:
Reality Rank
After being attached Quay carved out sacred Sunday afternoons to sew and watch Drag Race with the door closed. That free time ritual sparked endless convos with friends plotting their favorite queens and seasons. So she built a space for fans to rank contestants, talk trash, and share their picks.
Bowl Spinner
As a vegan mom cooking for a kid who eats meat, Quay found herself preparing two dishes for each meal and that was unsustainable. She began preparing customizable bowls: fast, flexible, and low-stress. Bowl Spinner turns that system into a playful tool that reduces food waste, flavor boredom, and decision fatigue, especially in homes juggling multiple diets.
Wash Day
After postpartum hair loss, Quay needed a way to track what worked for her hair and what didn’t, without feeling defeated by the slow, nonlinear process of hair recovery. Wash Day is the app she wishes existed then: a hair care tracker and feed of new styles to try out as she rebuilt her hair confidence.
About Quay
Quay Emmons is a Senior Product Marketing Manager, creative technologist, and marketing strategist who pivoted into tech after over a decade in multi-family real estate. She specializes in blending creativity and technical expertise to develop innovative solutions.
She lives in Pflugerville, just north of Austin, Texas, with her husband, son, and dog Hux.
Quick Facts
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Born and raised in Talladega, Alabama with cows mooing outside her window.
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Auburn grad with a degree in Radio, TV & Film, and a minor in marketing.
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Is a member of the Bey Hive, and has a lot in common with Beyonce.
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Her son wants to be a race car driver when he grows up so she's really into racing and fast cars.
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The family loves watching Bluey and Finding Nemo. She made a thumb promise to her son to take him to Australia one day.
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Currently snapping back—not to a pre-baby body, but to making free time for creative pursuits. Her offline hobbies include sewing, painting, woodworking, knitting, and making race tracks out of cardboard.
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The YMCA saved her sanity on many days.
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Former small-town pageant queen.
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A surprise fourth app is coming.
Product Marketing / Tech & Nerd Facts
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As she teaches herself SQL, she's also teaching her toddler to swim.
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Patiently awaiting the release of The Winds of Winter and a Dream of Spring.
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Uses no-code/low-code tools to prototype fast and stay in flow. Her tech stack is Lovable, Supabase, Resend, Wix, Google Workspaces, and Trello.
Reality Rank / Competition Reality Show Facts
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Flavor of Love was her first competition reality show. She gifted a DVD of season two to her college roommate when she moved out.
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Her favorite competition reality shows are Project Runway, Drag Race, Traitors, and Chopped.
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Her favorite personalities are Tiffany Pollard, Deelishis, TS Madison, Monét X Change, Brooke Lynn Hytes, and Miss Vanjie.
Bowl Spinner / Plant Based & Cooking Facts
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Has been plant based since 2015.
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Loves all types of mushrooms, oysters are her favorite.
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Is a sauce boss. Makes all of her dressings and sauces from scratch for each dish.
Wash Day / Natural Hair Facts
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Suffered severe hair loss twice in her life and cut off all of her hair to recover each time.
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Stopped using chemical relaxers and big chopped in 2015.
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Her hair toolkit includes Mielle pomegranate and honey leave in and curl custard, Pattern detangling nectar and transition gel, a Dyson airwrap, and the Hercules Sägemann 5660 Seamless Comb.