Product · 2026
Qystra
Qystra is an innovation launch and discovery platform MVP where creators and companies publish opportunities and post updates, built with Next.js and NestJS.
The problem
Most products get attention on launch day and then disappear. Qystra is testing one idea: that creators and companies will keep a project discoverable after launch, and that users will come back to find it.
What I built
The MVP covers accounts, company profiles, posts and opportunities, updates, and a ranked, filterable feed as the main way to discover projects.
Planning before code
The product documents described more than the agreed MVP. Before the build, I mapped each requested feature against the scope and marked it as build, defer or change request. That kept the plan honest, and left room in the data model for later phases.
Architecture
The backend is a modular monolith: one NestJS application with hard module boundaries, PostgreSQL and Redis. It deploys as separate API and worker processes from the same image. Background queues handle email, notifications, media, metrics and scheduling, while Next.js renders the public pages.