“We’re not code monkeys. We’re product partners who happen to write code. If we wouldn’t use it ourselves, we won’t ship it.”
Yash Tamakuwala, CEO, Propelius Technologies
Building in public means showing the work, and the work always comes down to people. Before we start sharing features, milestones and launch dates in this series, we wanted you to meet the three developers turning appt in from wireframes into a real app that small business owners will use every day.
We’re building with Propelius Technologies. We picked them because they got the brief straight away. No hand-holding, no jargon, just good engineers who care about the problem we’re trying to solve. If you’ve ever managed a build with an external team, you’ll know how rare that is.
Here’s who’s on it.
Sakshi Veghela, Project Lead
Sakshi keeps everything moving. She handles planning, timelines and the hundred small decisions that go into shipping software on schedule. Before Propelius she worked across data science and full-stack development, so she’s fluent in both the what and the why of what Jay and Vasanti are building. Anyone who’s tried to steer a dev team while translating real-world needs into code will know how much that matters.
Jay Jikadra, Lead Frontend Engineer
Jay’s the one making appt in look and feel like something you actually want to open. With 4.5 years of experience building apps for web and mobile, he’s leading the frontend work. That means everything you tap, scroll and swipe on your phone goes through him.
He’s using React Native, a technology that lets us build one app that works beautifully on both iPhone and Android without having to write it twice. He’s also wiring up the connections between the app and the backend, including Stripe for payments, so when a business sends a booking confirmation or takes a payment, it all lands where it’s meant to. Jay is the kind of engineer who cares as much about how something feels as how it works, which is exactly what we wanted.
Vasanti Suthar, Backend Engineer
If Jay handles what you see, Vasanti handles what you don’t. She’s built the backend, the part that stores customer data safely, processes payments and keeps things running smoothly when dozens of users are doing dozens of things at once.
With 3.5 years of backend experience and a specialism in AI-integrated systems, Vasanti is also the one quietly setting us up for the smart features coming later. Think the kind of intelligence that’ll help a business owner spot their busiest hours or know exactly when to follow up with a customer. She’s using Supabase, a modern backend platform that gives us serious security without the faff. Vasanti has the rare knack of making complicated things sound simple, which is a good sign when you’re building for people who’d rather run their business than debug one.
What they’re heads-down on right now
The team is building the core features of the MVP: bookings, messaging, payments, and the customer records that tie everything together. We’re on track for launch later this year, with the first 100 businesses from our pre-launch signups testing it in batches as we go.
We’ll be sharing the journey honestly. The good bits, the hard bits, and the bits we didn’t see coming.
Follow the series
This is the second post in our Building in Public series, where we’re opening the hood on what it actually takes to get a small business app from idea to launch. Follow along on LinkedIn or at here on apptin.app, and we’ll see you for the next one.