We have just released an alpha version of the last feature of our platform, which I already discussed here. It was a lengthy phase because we didn’t just work on software development and engineering. In this post, I’ll share some updates on our progress during Beta 21, along with a few personal updates.
The Last Feature That Changed Everything!
This phase was dedicated to implementing a functional version of a feature that we initially prototyped in early 2024.
We managed to implement almost 80% of what we prototyped. Although we were supposed to fully implement it in this phase, in January 2025, we realized that the feature was more complicated than I had initially thought. So, we stopped and went back to the good old whiteboard, spending some time redesigning, rectifying, and enhancing some of its business rules.
This feature has since become the heart of our platform.
Addressing An Overdue Concern
Well, there’s no easy way to break it — I decided to eliminate a critical single point of failure (SPOF) embedded in the platform’s architecture. The issue dated back to 2020, when, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we couldn’t launch the platform.
We started experimenting with a third-party technology, and before we knew it, it had crept into almost every feature we built afterward. We even went back and incorporated it into some features we had developed prior to that point.
What happened is, the company supporting that tech went through an acquisition process, and it gradually became unreliable. It didn’t happen overnight. As it became more fragile, it forced me to make some bad design choices, and now I’ve decided I’m done being pushed out of tested patterns.
I’m being vague because I don’t want to disclose which tech it was — I want to keep the option of rolling out the platform with it and then gradually removing it from the components later.
Anyway, this decision significantly changed our roadmap and influenced our timeline to some extent. Here’s our rough projection — like any plan at this stage, it’s subject to change based on our progress.
Business Incorporation
We weren’t just developing the last feature during this phase. Over the past couple of months, I had to put my CEO/CFO hat back on and incorporate our business entity here in Vancouver. From setting up our Vancouver office, compiling the Articles of Incorporation, preparing multiple agreements, doing a name search, incorporating, opening the business bank account, registering with the Canada Revenue Agency (Canadian IRS), dealing with third-party providers, setting up the accounting system, etc. A ton of work — no exaggeration!
Well, these were the culprits behind this relatively lengthy phase.
Personal Update
Since this is my personal blog, let me give you some personal updates as well.
Settlement & Multiple Burnouts
During Beta 21, I burnt out multiple times. Ever since I’ve been back in Vancouver, I’ve been trying my best to spend some time for myself. Knowing the environment and not being a total stranger didn’t help much. The problem probably stemmed from working overtime; I’m super occupied with the company and the project, juggling between being CEO, CTO, CFO, and CMO.
The workload of the CTO role is just incomparable to the others — I constantly have to switch between PM, back-end, front-end, iOS, and DevOps engineering.
The burnout got to the point that, in one of the meetings I had with the company’s CAO (Chief Analytics Officer), we reviewed my logs and noticed that, over the last five months, if we count all weekdays, weekends, public holidays, and even my birthday, I had only taken five days off.
That’s not healthy — that’s a disaster, I know. I wonder: who can really save me from myself?
My Birthday
I celebrated my birthday in February with my friends. Hamid (one of my old friends) was kind enough to buy me a cake, come to my place, and make everyone’s dinner.
Hossein, another close friend of mine — who you’re going to hear more about — also surprised me by sending a Nespresso machine all the way from Miami, Florida, that got delivered just in time.
It was a great night, followed by a snowy day spent reading and listening to the kind and warm messages my other friends from around the world left me on my phone. I’m really grateful for having these guys and girls around, remembering me. Here’s a photo I thought would be nice to share from that night.
Social Media Presence
I re-activated most of my social media accounts now that I’m not under close watch and fear anymore. However, I’m still getting used to this environment again, which comes with a lot of distractions. Also, realistically, I can barely find time to make myself dinner, or post an update here, let alone post on social media.
All that said, if I post something — which I do from time to time — it’ll probably be on either my Persian or English X account. I’ll make a big deal out of it later when we start our pre-launch campaign.
Note to myself: Never let a gap like this happen between your updates cause then you’re in hell, finishing a post that should be published a couple of days ago at the time the phase really concluded.
Alright, that’s about it.
Till the next update, stay safe!
