Mobile products
Rebuilding a Failing Social App for Women
Took a crashing React Native app from 0 to first stable alpha with 10 users in 3 months.
- LaunchFirst stable alpha in 3 months
- Crash Reduction40% faster diagnosis
- Security10+ users, zero unauthorized access
Problem and stakes
TOUT is building a women-only social platform. When I joined as the first engineer, the React Native app was failing in production—crashes, broken flows, no observability. The founding team needed someone who could rebuild the entire stack and get to a stable alpha for their first user cohort.
- Unstable codebase: App crashed frequently with no error tracking or monitoring
- Security gap: No way to enforce women-only access at signup
- Zero observability: No insight into what was breaking or when
- Timeline pressure: Needed to launch alpha for first 10 users in 3 months
My role
- Role
- Founding Full-Stack Engineer
- Stage
- Pre-seed, 0 to alpha
- Team
- Solo engineer, working with 2 founders
Strategy and decisions
Rebuilt the app from scratch
React Native, TypeScript
- Refactored core navigation and state management
- Fixed memory leaks causing crashes
- Established component library for consistency
- Set up CI/CD pipeline for automated testing
Designed invite-only onboarding with OTP verification
Custom auth flow
- Built custom auth flow enforcing invite codes
- Integrated Twilio for SMS-based OTP
- Protected community integrity before scaling
- Created admin tools for invite management
Integrated observability stack
Sentry, Grafana, Prometheus
- Set up error tracking and alerting
- Built custom dashboards for user behavior
- Reduced crash diagnosis time by 40%+
- Implemented real-time monitoring for critical paths
Outcomes
- Delivered first stable alpha on timeGot to 10 users in 3 months with zero critical bugs
- Onboarded first 10 women usersZero unauthorized access, protected community integrity
- Enabled team to diagnose issues 40% fasterAccelerated iteration and reduced downtime
- Set foundation for scalingArchitecture ready for 100+ users post-launch
Stack
React NativeTypeScriptTwilioSentryGrafanaPrometheusAWS