Experience of Installing Custom ROM

I was sick of Stock OS of Zenfone Selfie provided by ASUS. So, I decided to flash custom OS, the Cyanogenmod on my phone.

Tools I used:

1. CM13 .zip file by NIGHTLY
2. TWRP recovery .img file
3. ADB + USB Debugging
4. GAPPS .zip file
5. Bootlocker tool

Risks I took:

1. I knew that rooting device would mean losing warranty on my phone. I anyways go to Nehru Place in case of any problems. Who does even go to company?
2. I was doing it for the first time. So, that means if I do anything wrong, I would cause bricking the device.

Problems I faced:

1. Initially I could not find correct GAPPS for my phone. I knew that Selfie is not Intel based as other Zenfone 2 are. So, it had to be ARM type gapps. Still, I downloaded both types in case I did something wrong. I flashed both one by one.and both failed. Then I realised that Snapdragon 615 was a 64-bit processor and then I downloaded the correct one.
2. I was confused which file to download because most of the tutorials were for Zenfone 2 and not for selfie specifically. Many TWRP files confused me.
3. ADB did not work once. Later I copied the img to the same folder as ADB (sdk>platform-tools) and it worked fine.
4. The error "unfortunately setup wizard has stopped" kept popping. It left my phone unusable. I realised the step where I did the mistake. I and did the steps of flashing all again correctly.
5. Still phone got stuck in a boot loop. I took out of battery and reboot. It worked fine.

Precautions I took:

1. I made sure I had TWRP installed as soon as possible after unlocking bootlock.
2. I kept reading and reading all the sources, and all the abbreviations, details over and over again before starting any step. I watched at least 20 video tutorials too. And they varied from each other which confused me even further. I did not start until I was sure what I had to do in the whole run.
3. I took full Nandroid backup on phone as well as PC
4. I figured out how to hard reset if anything goes wrong.
5. I read extensively how to prevent bricking, and if possible how to do the unbricking.

Result:

Now I am running Android Marshmallow on my Zenfone Selfie with no bloatwares, and around 2gb RAM vacant. I have the nano-package of gapps so it saves space. It is so smooth and fast now. I am happy I learnt so many new things today while doing this procedure.

PS: I am having a wide-wide smile on my face.