More innovative projects (2016-2021)

Contents

• Tagplan - hashtag research in a blink
• PullReceipt - Simplifying your paperwork before the AI agent times
• MultiGa - realtime traffic across all your websites in one dashboard
• Closing thoughts

Tagplan - hashtag research in a blink

Functional prototype, 2019-2021.

TagPlan is a user-friendly tool designed to simplify Instagram campaign planning by providing highly relevant hashtags in seconds. It helps users increase their reach and target specific niches effectively by leveraging automation to analyze top Instagram posts. TagPlan was created to save time and deliver better results for businesses and individuals looking to optimize their social media performance.

One of the core challenges with TagPlan was navigating Facebook’s API policies. The project launched about a year after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and Facebook had significantly tightened access controls. The approval process for using Instagram’s API became a maze of business verification and developer account checks, often out of sync with each other. Despite having a verified business, my developer account was occasionally locked, sometimes for weeks, due to inconsistencies on Facebook’s end. Solving these issues depended heavily on the availability and competence of support agents, which often delayed progress.

Although TagPlan solved a clear problem, several factors led me to shift focus. Being a solo founder while consulting left little time to promote the tool or address the marketing gap. Without a co-founder to handle business development, reaching marketers—who often expect free tools—proved difficult. Monetization was a concern, as it wasn’t clear how much users would value the solution. Additionally, Instagram’s evolving algorithms seemed to reduce the importance of hashtag optimization. With more promising opportunities elsewhere, I decided to set TagPlan aside and move on.

PullReceipt - Taking care of your paperwork before AI agents was a thing

Functional prototype, 2017-2018.

PullReceipt was born out of a desire to simplify the tedious task of managing purchase invoices for small businesses. As a busy professional spending hours each quarter searching for invoices and forwarding them to an accountant, I realized how much time was wasted on repetitive, low-value tasks. PullReceipt was designed to solve this problem by automatically extracting invoices from email inboxes, allowing business owners to focus on what truly matters—growing their business or enjoying well-deserved downtime.

While developing pullReceipt, one significant challenge was handling the diversity of invoice formats and delivery methods. Invoices arrived as attachments, downloadable links, or required navigating through login portals to retrieve them. My prototype successfully managed attachments, even tackling the complexities of “multipart” emails and quirks with the Gmail API. Additionally, I built multilingual invoice detection, addressing Belgium’s unique mix of English, French, Dutch, and other languages. This added technical depth and ensured the solution could cater to a broad audience.

Despite a promising start and positive feedback from my coworking space, several obstacles emerged. A critical turning point was Gmail’s policy change requiring a costly security audit for API usage in commercial applications, making scaling the project difficult. While I managed to build a functional prototype for personal use, the lack of a business cofounder meant all aspects—technical development, marketing, and operations—fell on my shoulders. Combined with limited engagement on my prototype announcement, the Gmail API constraints, and the challenges of working solo, I ultimately decided to discontinue the project. However, the experience sharpened my skills in API integration and multilingual data processing, which I’ve applied to subsequent endeavors.

MultiGa - realtime traffic across all your websites in one dashboard

Free open source tool, 2016-2018.

MultiGa was created to address a limitation in Google Analytics’ real-time dashboard, which only shows live traffic for one website at a time. For website owners managing multiple sites, this made it difficult to get a complete picture of visitor activity. MultiGa solves this by providing a centralized, real-time view of traffic across all Google Analytics properties, making it especially useful during server operations or deployments.

The challenge with multiGa was not about building a complex tool but about addressing a simple, overlooked business need. Google Analytics already offered excellent real-time reports, but they were limited to one site at a time. For businesses managing multiple websites, there was no native solution to view live traffic side by side. multiGa filled this gap by leveraging Google Analytics data to provide a straightforward, centralized dashboard that addressed this practical need without overcomplicating the experience

While multiGa barely got any traction after its initial launch, it was discovered organically a few years later and gained consistent usage by a handful of IT companies in Asia. Eventually, changes to Google Analytics’ API access policies made it impractical to continue offering multiGa publicly. One company requested help to self-host the tool, and I provided a simplified setup to ensure they could continue using it seamlessly. Although multiGa is no longer active, it fulfilled its purpose for those who found value in its unique offering.

Closing thoughts

Each of these projects represents a step in my journey of solving real-world problems through technology. Whether tackling inefficiencies in business workflows or building tools to fill overlooked gaps, I’ve learned to combine technical expertise with a user-focused mindset. While not all projects reached their full potential, they sharpened my skills and reinforced my passion for creating solutions that simplify and enhance everyday tasks.