From a campus idea to an acquisition.
Built a campus platform with 3 engineers, ran fundraising and hiring, and saw it acquired.
Co-Founder & Technical Lead · led a team of engineers · Jun 2021 – May 2023 · Benguerir
Context
A campus-digitalisation startup: a campus app, a student portal and a services platform, built from concept to production.
Problem
Students, staff and PhD researchers needed one digital home for campus services, and a student tool only lasts if the institution adopts it.
Architecture
- Students · staff · PhD researchers
- Campus app & student portal
- Services platform
- Campus administration
Key decisions & trade-offs
Own the whole system
Architected it end to end from POC to production, owning every stack and infrastructure decision.
Trade-offAll the responsibility on a small team; one coherent system.
Institution-wide adoption
Pushed for campus-wide administration adoption alongside students.
Trade-offSlower sales cycle; it made the platform infrastructure, not an app.
Run it as a venture
Ran fundraising, university partnerships, hiring and product strategy, and joined pitches and client meetings.
Trade-offLess time coding; the company survived and was acquired.
Outcomes
- ~5,000 active users
- Campus-wide administration adoption
- Acquired by UM6P
- ~5 years in operation