I've missed the last two weeks of blogs, and consistency is something I'm working on. But even without the updates, a lot has been happening! The main reason for the break was that I had a bad case of food poisoning, which kept me in bed for five days—not fun at all. On the bright side, I've just moved to Melbourne, Australia! I'll be staying with my sister for a couple of months, traveling with her while I continue to build Reboard (and saving on rent—always a plus). So far, Melbourne has been great. The people are friendly, the city is well-designed, and it feels incredibly safe. The only downside? Public transport is a bit pricey, but it's a small thing compared to the bigger picture: getting Reboard up and running.

Business Updates: Setting the Stage for Feedback

The plan remains the same for now: as soon as the MVP has its first feature live, I'll start reaching out for feedback from potential users in Europe and here in Australia. The rental market is strong here, so I'm hoping that will play to my advantage when knocking on doors for insights.

I'll also start looking into the startup scene in Melbourne. Building a network of like-minded entrepreneurs and possibly finding a co-founder is definitely on my radar. That said, it's always a challenge to convince people to jump on board when the product is still in the validation phase.

Marketing: Meet Rebot, the Face of Reboard

I'm thrilled to introduce Rebot, our brand-new mascot! He's a playful yet professional character who perfectly represents the vision of Reboard. The puzzle-like design fits with our mission to integrate various tools for property management, and his robotic look hints at the automation features we'll be offering. You'll be seeing a lot of Rebot across our marketing materials, and I'm considering 3D printing him as a fun souvenir for us and future clients. For now, though, he'll primarily live on the landing page and in promotional content.

Product Updates: Progress Despite Roadblocks

Despite the food poisoning and move, I'm happy to say I achieved the two goals I set for myself:

1. User Settings Page: It's now live! Users can modify their preferences and personal data. Down the line, this page will allow users to download their data and even change the platform's language. Multilingual support is crucial since we plan to operate in multiple countries, but for now, everything remains in English. There's still some design work to polish, but functionality-wise, it's all set.

2. Stripe Payments Integration: Payments are now up and running. Although we're not looking to charge users just yet, we've added Stripe as a protective measure. As we work on bank integration — a feature that has non-negligible costs — putting the platform behind a paywall will help prevent abuse. Eventually, we'll implement more sophisticated consumption monitoring, but for now, this solution works.

There was a technical aspect of integrating stripe that I want to discuss because it was interesting. When accepting payments with a Stripe link, we only get the email provided by the person that made the payment. And this can be an issue if the email they provide is not the same one used for their Reboard account. If its the case, it's impossible to reconcile them. So to solve this problem we created a small work around by creating a new reboard account with the email given to stripe if we dont't have it in our database. Then the user receives an email to set their password and everything works as usual, they just have a new account for that email. It's not the best user experience but it works. If the user wants to keep his old account for some reason, it is always possible to reconcile the two acocunts manually. And in the future, we will more thoroughly integrate Stripe so that this is no longuer an isssue.

What's Next: Full Speed Ahead

Now that I'm settled, I'm ready to pick up the pace. Over the next two weeks, the focus will be on integrating bank account information, which will unlock the first core feature of the platform and bring the MVP closer to reality. It's going to be a lot of work, but I'm excited about the progress ahead.