My Journey

I'm a React Developer and Product Manager. I'm obsessed with products that change lives, and code that changes the life of a product

Becoming a Developer

I've been lucky to meet some incredible people on my journey here. I've worked on some amazing projects, which would not have been possible without their support.

My journey began when I left my job as an environmental consultant at JBS&G and moved interstate to Melbourne. In Melbourne I learnt what a good coffee tasted like, and I became a student at the Le Wagon full-stack bootcamp. It was my time at Le Wagon where I fell in love with the world of code and the team work involved to solve problems and make products that change lives.

This new found passion was the first step down a long (and painful) new journey. Le Wagon gave me the confidence and skill set to engineer projects using HTML5, SASS, MySQL, Ruby on Rails, and TDD and MVC architectural patterns. Utilizing the four basic functions of persistent storage (CRUD), I was able to develop the first MVP of my passion project, called Moruya.

I spent the following year (2019) levelling up my web development experience by learning React as my JavaScript library of choice. I took everything I built from Moruya's MVP (a project management app for environmental consultants), and built it from scratch in React. I gave myself the arduous task of completing V2 of the MVP in a couple of months. React taught me all about Props, Hooks, Context, Routing and the wonderful world of component driven development. You can checkout my tech stack below.

My stack
html icon css icon react icon firebase icon netlify icon

Becoming a Founder

I decided to try my hand at the world of start-ups. I got accepted into INCUBATE, an award-winning startup accelerator run by the University of Sydney Union in partnership with the University of Sydney. We entered INCUBATE with a rough and somewhat functioning Moruya prototype, now built entirely in React.

I had an incredible time during INCUBATE where I learnt:

  • The fundamentals of customer and user research
  • How to develop and maintain a business model
  • How to generate and predict P&Ls
  • Our market fit
  • How to pitch to investors
  • The intricacies of negotiating business partnerships

Whilst my time as a consultant gave me the first hand validation and market understanding for Moruya, undergoing extensive customer interviews made me realise:

💡 We needed to validate Moruya's concept into something that solved a customer's unique problem, rather than what we thought solved our understanding of the problem.

It was from the customer research I decided to pivot Moruya into a far simpler product. One that would directly solve our customer's pain points and not force them to use features that would hinder their experience.

The customer research and product pivots opened the door for Moruya to be engaged by one of the world's largest global analysis labs, where my journey continues today.

You can watch Moruya's INCUBATE Demo Day pitch below.