A Brief History of Afterify

Afterify just had its third birthday a few weeks ago and it has been surreal for me because these last 3 years have gone by really quickly. I blame the speed of the last 2 years to Covid as that has been a blur for me but it is still crazy that we are 3 years in. So let me go though a brief history of Afterify and where we plan to go in the future.

The idea of Afterify wasn't new, I had been kicking it around for many years prior after a bad experience while reviewing photos with my family in a photographer's studio. My son was 1 year old and while we sat in a dark room reviewing photos, he was just wanting to play and be a 1 year old. Trying to pay attention to the photos being shown as well as my son was a lot to juggle and I felt that I didn't get to properly review those photos. Since then, I wanted to help make those experiences better for people that didn't or couldn't travel to a photographer's studio.

At the time there was not a lot of companies doing online galleries so it seems like a great opportunity. I then would attempt to build something that would resemble a photographer's online gallery but it ended up not going anywhere after 6 months of building it. Fast-forward to 2019 and meeting Louise, we just began working on the same team at a company in Omaha. She was a designer and was running her own business on the site. After conversations and finding our visions aligned we began working on a new site together.

I have been a software developer for over 10 years coding in many different languages but I will admit that I was unsure of myself with the inception of Afterify. What framework and tech stack should I use? How would I manage all the data and storage? How will I be able to maintain this for the future? Imposter syndrome was at an all time high and I questioned if I could do it. I lucked out though, I had worked with many incredibly skilled developers over the years and they were all willing to help point me in some directions. I eventually landed on a tech stack that I thought could cover all the things that Afterify would need to be built.

We needed a cheap and integrated file storage platform, fast and reliable data management, authentication, security, and a way to host it all. Early ideas of Afterify were strictly photo management and a simple gallery. So I began searching for what we could built this on. In a past job I had worked a lot with a JavaScript framework called React and really liked it, but I was also suggested an alternative framework called Vue. Vue offered lots of features but wasn't as popular as React. I did, however, really like the simplicity to develop things very quickly in it so I decide to give it a try. Worse case I could rebuild the site if it didn't work out.

Next I needed a data solution and most developers might suggest Amazon Web Services (AWS) but the experience I had with AWS was frustration just to understand the terminology. I wanted a simple, easy, and integrated solution. Now I have lots of experience with mySQL and I was prepared to go that route, but I was hesitant because this would mean maintaining a server as well as looking to make sure it can scale as we (fingers crossed) grew. Then I came across a service I had not heard of before called Firebase. Firebase was a Google Cloud product that offered many integrated features such as storage, databases, auth, serverless functions, and hosting. Pricing was free until you started getting into some real traffic and usage. And it could integrate into the site really easily. This is great but I had never used it so for several weeks, I built out a Vue + Firebase stack working on simple things such as sign up and sign in. Things started clicking and I knew that this was the start of something awesome.

If I were to rate my design skills, I would put them somewhere between bold and questionable. Before Louise fully committed to working with me, I had some rough ideas that I had designed and although I would argue that they were awesome, there was also lots of things I was not thinking about.

First, I really like small font size. My code editor's font size is meant for someone with a microscope. I also need dark mode (I don't really need it) but Louise worked with me after joining and we iterated over every part of those designs for about a year and a half. I give her a lot of credit for putting up with those designs but we hit a bit of a wall with new features that we really wanted to add. We decided we needed a brand new design and this would finally give Louise the ability to stretch her designer legs and run with something new and incredible. This would also give her the chance to truly build the Afterify brand which we still lacked at the time.

The next 6 months was some of the most fun I had developing. And in my opinion, this was when we really hit our stride. Louise was designing the future of Afterify and I was building it. By this point I had the ability to upload photos working. We had some basic management tools working as well. You could organize everything into different clients, events, and projects. You could also manage your own account. We also had the start of the client galleries working too.

I say that it was some of the most fun but there was also equal amount of frustrations. Trial and error to make a reliable uploader that showed real-time updates with hundreds or more photos was the biggest challenge I faced. Followed by trying to figure out how to manage all the files and data in the servers. I also had to figure out how to image process these photos to create smaller sizes for different needs on the site. The solutioning that was needed at every turn was taxing and mix that with refactoring so much code as I learned and grew as a developer.

One other major point that I think both Louise and I learned through this was how to communicate with each other. Her designs are extremally well thought out but that requires lots of iterations over her designs. She has a process that works really well but I would find myself wanted to get ahead of her. Next thing you know, I am nearly done building whatever she was designing only to find out that the design needed a big change to accommodate a feature we wanted. The number of times I did this is too many to count. I would eventually learn to trust the process and be patient. Now if I work on anything ahead of her, it is strictly to prototype the data and to prove that I can build it.

This is getting a bit longer that I thought it might but what I find interesting is how I only glossed over the major things that happened and also skipped many key moments in the design and developer of Afterify. I plan to revisit those key moments in future posts.

The last 3 years has been such a roller-coaster and now that Afterify is in beta, we really hope to see the fruits of that labor. Hell, I never thought I would be writing about any of this 3 years ago but it is funny how things turn out.