It’s been almost four years now since I started on a side project to help Esther. Sometimes I ask myself: why am I still doing Soniq? After a busy week at work, I seem to get energy from doing a very similar thing: writing code, thinking about data, thinking about algorithms. It’s become a labour of love and more than just a business venture.

I think it's the making of a new creation; the thought of helping someone out there with every day needs; the thought that I might be able to excite someone or improve their everyday life. At the same time it has proved to be an invaluable learning experience for me. 

I was speaking to my friend Tim Bennicks and he made me realize that this is as much a journey for me exploring new avenues for code and stretching my awareness of computer science. It's never quite the simple path for me, when I want to do something I want to use the opportunity to learn along the way.  I like that process of in-depth learning and then seeing the outcome of doing something well.

This is more than just building something, I also want to engage with thinking and research that has been done in the past. Much of what I am doing has been done before and it's this prior research, combined with a focus on the niche of people I am looking to serve, a community that has particular wants and needs.

This last year has been pretty tough going. I started a new role which has demanded a huge amount of my energy and creativity. At the same time, working on Soniq, I have gone to ground and decided to make some significant changes to the project. I have moved away from a pure Serverless architecture and moved the main API to Rust. It has been a decision that has cost a lot of time and from a business perspective you could argue that it was not a good choice so I'm just evaluating that decision now. Looking back at what I've just been talking about I can see that this was a very personal journey for me. I have gained so much from the learning experience, the exposure that it's given me to working with Rust code in production, the freedom that it's provided me to make use of many open-source, non-serverless technologies. I still like the idea of serverless although I don’t feel like it has lived up to its potential. I have also found it is quite restrictive when you want to go outside the boundaries of any particular platform.

So, I have finally arrived at the point where I feel that there is enough functionality and stability for me to put it into beta mode. My next task will be to find one or two teachers, probably that are just starting out and have only a few students. If I can find someone who is keen to give this a go in return for a lifetime subscription, that should improve the product and start that next phase of this journey.