AllMapHostels
Hostel discovery & booking SaaS
AllMapHostels is a multi-sided SaaS platform solving the chaotic, WhatsApp-group-based hostel search experience for students near Ghanaian campuses. I designed and shipped the entire system—from data model to deployment—reaching 400+ registered users and 19 active hostel listings within 31 days of launch. The platform handles real money, real bookings, and real users every day.
400+
Total Users
123
Weekly Active
GH₵390 — monetized day one; 6.6% conversion on a student market
MRR
19
Hostels Listed
Screenshots
Student-facing discovery map—search hostels near any Ghanaian campus with live availability filters.
Individual hostel listing page—photos, amenities, room types, pricing, and one-click booking.
Hostel admin dashboard—manage availability, track bookings, and view earnings in real time.
My Role & Scope
End-to-end ownership—auth, payments, admin dashboard, APIs, and a four-app architecture: Student App, Hostel Admin App, Super Admin App, Central Backend API.
Tech Stack
Key Engineering Decisions
- 01
Chose PostgreSQL for transactional consistency across multi-role bookings.
- 02
Used server-side rendering for SEO-optimized hostel discovery pages.
- 03
Centralized auth logic in NestJS backend to reduce duplication across all four apps.
Hard Problem Solved
Handling concurrent bookings without double reservations when multiple students book the same hostel simultaneously.
Implemented database transactions with row-level locking (SELECT FOR UPDATE) and optimistic concurrency control to prevent race conditions.
What Broke in Production
A deployment caused auth tokens to invalidate—fixed by versioning JWT secrets and adding rollback steps to the deployment pipeline.
What I Would Improve Next
Add background jobs for email notifications and move heavy geolocation calculations off the request cycle using queue workers.
AllMapHostels
Hostel discovery & booking SaaS