I recently finished working on a new project that has been one of the most interesting things I've built so far: a booking management platform designed for barbers, beauty salons, and other appointment-based businesses.

The goal was simple: create something that helps businesses manage their day-to-day operations while keeping the experience straightforward for both merchants and customers.

The mobile application was built with Expo and targets both iOS and Android. One of the interesting aspects of this project was using Claude Code as part of the development process. AI-assisted development can accelerate certain workflows, but it still requires engineering judgment, testing, iteration, and many adjustments along the way.

The app focuses on the essentials needed to run appointment-based businesses.

The main areas currently include:

The idea was to keep things organised without overwhelming users with too many options.

Businesses also get an online booking page that they can share directly with customers. Instead of handling appointments through scattered messages and calls, customers can book through a dedicated page.

One important piece of the experience was communication.

The platform automatically sends booking confirmations and reminders to both customers and merchants using:

Reducing missed appointments and keeping everyone informed was an important part of the project.

For authentication, I implemented OTP login using phone numbers. The goal was to make access as frictionless as possible while avoiding the traditional "remember another password" experience.

Payments were another interesting area.

The project includes Stripe integration with support for Tap to Pay functionality. One of the most satisfying moments during development was testing the feature with a real physical Stripe test card and seeing the flow work end-to-end.

Beyond merchant payments, there is also a web version where businesses can manage their subscription and purchase plans through Stripe Checkout.

The platform follows a SaaS model, where merchants subscribe to access the service.

Although the mobile app is the main experience, I wanted businesses to have access to account management through the web as well.

The web application currently handles subscription management and payment flows, separating operational work from account administration.

The initial focus is Portugal.

The plan is to validate the product locally, understand real usage patterns, and improve the experience before expanding into other European markets.

Building software is always a mix of solving technical problems and trying to understand whether you're solving a real-world problem that people actually care about.

This project had both.

And as with most projects, the interesting part isn't just the code. It's seeing many smaller pieces — mobile apps, payments, notifications, authentication, subscriptions, and booking flows — eventually come together into a working product.