BookHive

What inspired you to build this? The idea for BookHive came from a very simple observation: a lot of people—especially students—buy books that are used once and then sit idle on shelves, while others nearby are looking for the same books. Reading is usually treated as a solitary activity, but the interest in books is social. I wanted to build something that brings that offline sharing behavior into a structured, trustworthy digital system. What problem were you trying to solve? The core problem wasn’t just access to books—it was access with trust and locality. Existing platforms either focus on e-books, resale, or shipping-heavy rentals. BookHive focuses on borrowing instead of buying, connecting nearby readers, and making real-world exchanges safe through reputation, messaging, and clear workflows. How did your approach or process evolve during the launch? Initially, I approached BookHive like a feature-driven project. But as it grew, the focus shifted toward system design and production readiness. I started optimizing performance with Redis caching, designing clear borrowing lifecycles, adding role-based access, and thinking about edge cases, abuse prevention, and scalability. Building this in public also changed my process—I iterated daily based on feedback, refactored aggressively, and treated it less like a demo and more like a real product that people might actually rely on.