The Genesis of an Idea

It all started in November 2015, freshly liberated from a brief one-year stint as a technical consultant, when I plunged with a friend into the great adventure of entrepreneurship. Welcome to Startup Nation! Our project? A mobile app for finding and sharing local activities—extremely original, I know, we broke the mold.

Armed with the financial security of a hard-won mutual termination agreement, we had time, energy to spare, and, of course, a lovely collection of bad decisions to make.

We opted for a “bootstrap” startup, not seeking external funding until our app attracted crowds. Inspired by Oussama Amar’s videos and lucky to be both developers, we crafted our product with sheer grit. Choosing technologies, whipping up mockups, diving into Photoshop sessions, and voila, everything took shape.

In Java for Android, because, you understand, native is classier. Of course, being code nuts, everything had to be immaculate. So, we dove into the trendy patterns, refactored our code base more often than necessary, and spent a wild amount of energy in the process.

For the backend, we chose PHP with Phalcon, touted as the fastest framework on the market—we love catchy titles about performance. A quick benchmark, and it was settled. We embarked on PHP, added a MySQL for the database, and for searching, a memcached for speed. Naturally, having an ultra-efficient cache is crucial when you have no users!

Trials and Reflections

We also wanted to integrate our own chat, so we got into Erlang and did everything properly with XMPP, just like WhatsApp. Firebase for notifications, and there, our app was functional, neat, and really top-notch. In the meantime, rejected by several incubators, including The Family, we still pitched our project to an audience, gaining experience, refining our commercial pitch, and making utterly ludicrous user projections.

Nine months later, in July 2016, our app was ready. We tried to sell it to the public, unsuccessfully. Three users joined in addition to our relatives who signed up to make us happy—the return to reality was harsh. We didn’t even use our own product, which should have been a warning sign. In reality, everything was still to be done, but my personal motivation had already exited stage left.

I decided to turn the page and seek new horizons. This first attempt taught me the importance of cherishing and optimizing motivation, rather than embarking on a grueling development marathon. In the end, a huge wall stood before us upon the app’s release, after having left too many feathers in the battle. The conclusion was harsh but hardly surprising.

If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably wondering how this relates to Indexus. Well, as I mentioned, our app was based on the geolocation and timing of its users’ activities. It was during this period that I developed the first version of our search algorithm, opting to avoid centralized databases to imagine a system capable of scaling.

It’s been 8-9 years since I developed that first algorithm. I have much to share about the journey that led me here, and I’m eager to take you through this new entrepreneurial adventure that looms ahead.