Mae de Agua

Carlos reached out because he'd seen me ship things fast. He had an idea for a wellness platform centered on hydration. Could I build an MVP?

I said yes. Three days later he had a working web app. Water tracking, wellness activities, a points system. Nothing fancy, but enough to put in front of real users and see what happened.

That was supposed to be it. A freelance project. Ship, invoice, move on.

But Carlos asked me to stay. Not as a contractor. He wanted me to define the technical architecture, figure out how to make it scale. I joined the team. Eventually I became a partner.

I didn't plan for that. It just happened because the work was good and the people were better.

Web first, then mobile

The first version was a web app. On purpose.

Web lets you iterate faster. Change something, refresh, see it. No app store reviews, no build times, no waiting for users to update. We needed that speed to figure out what mattered and what didn't.

Once we had clarity, we migrated to mobile. Not a web wrapper. A real native app. Glass effects, haptics, smooth animations. The experience users deserved after we'd figured out the product.

Voice with ElevenLabs

Mae has a voice companion. Not a chatbot reading text. An actual voice that guides meditations, celebrates progress, reminds you to drink water.

We trained a custom voice with ElevenLabs. The goal was warmth. We wanted users to forget they were talking to a machine.

I'd built voice integrations before, so I knew the patterns. But making it feel human, not robotic, took more iteration than I expected. The difference between 2-second latency and 400ms is the difference between a demo and something people actually use.

Apple Wallet

Members get a digital pass. Not a screenshot. A real Apple Wallet pass that updates dynamically, shows your current streak, unlocks events.

Building this was harder than expected. Apple's pass ecosystem has its quirks. Documentation that contradicts itself. Edge cases nobody warns you about. But when someone adds Mae to their wallet, they carry it everywhere. That friction was worth it.

The pass updates in real-time. Your streak, your points, your membership status. All synced.