I built a full social app end to end as a solo founder — AMA

Hi Product Hunt 👋

I’m Carter, the solo founder and maker of Otiumz.

Over the past two years, I’ve designed, built, and released the product end to end on iOS and Android. It includes multiple private and public profiles, Private and Public Moments, discovery, messaging, voice and video calls, and personalized AI that supports conversation starters, reply suggestions, and optional auto-replies.

The idea came from a problem I experienced personally. After moving from China to the U.S., I saw how differently we communicate with family, close friends, professional connections, and people we’re just getting to know—yet most social apps expect one profile to represent all of it. As a non-native English speaker, I also know how easy it is to overthink a message or let a conversation fade.

Ask me anything about:

• Building a complex consumer mobile app as a solo technical founder

• Designing multiple private and public profiles under one account

• Building messaging and real-time voice and video calls

• Designing AI to support human conversations rather than replace them

• Creating a multilingual social experience

• The product and engineering mistakes I’ve made along the way

• Preparing my first Product Hunt launch

I’ll answer every question I can over the next 24 hours. I won’t share proprietary AI model or provider details, but I’m happy to discuss product decisions, privacy principles, architecture at a high level, and what I’ve learned from building Otiumz.

Otiumz launches on Product Hunt this Saturday. Fire away!