The project I almost didn't ship.
I originally built this platform a year earlier with a simple intent: create a community where confused aspirants could get 1-on-1 guidance from actual college seniors. Like many side projects, life got busy, time passed, and the code sat unshipped.
With counseling season approaching again, a bit of builder guilt kicked in, hiding something that could genuinely help people felt worse than shipping something imperfect. So I pushed it live. The goal stays simple: build a supportive community and see if the platform can help even a few students make a better college decision.
users in month one - 192 mentees, 70 mentors, fully organic
paid JEE bookings in the first 15 days
exams covered · cities reached
What's under the hood
- Live video sessions built on Agora RTC, with scheduling and booking flows.
- End-to-end encrypted chat between mentors and mentees.
- An AI engine for personalized exam guidance, trained on session-driven data.
- Full stack: Next.js · Node.js · MongoDB, designed, built, and operated solo.
What it taught me
That distribution is a product problem too, every one of those first users arrived organically, which forced the onboarding, pricing, and trust design to carry the growth. And that shipping late beats not shipping.