We have been building COMS for over a year. Initially, the system was entirely managed through PHP, lacking a graphic interface.
This approach was deliberate; we aimed to test the concept and validate the market before committing significant time to a fully-fledged product.
We built a bare-bones, essentially alpha, product and trialed it with one client, offering them a highly favorable, no-cost deal in exchange for the trial. This process proceeded very well.
The client was very happy, and three weeks later, we provided Comus for our second event with some tweaks, which went even better.
Both clients are set to use the system for their annual events next year, accounting for up to 8,000 people, a significant metric.
Despite interest from more businesses, we chose to pause and rebuild properly. The original system was largely hardcoded to ensure functionality and test the concept.
Alex has since spent hundreds of hours redeveloping the system from scratch, creating a true MVP: a professional-grade product that is polished and cohesive.
In the rework, we found that making the system more dynamic, improving key areas, and adding functionality created unanticipated bugs, leading to a cycle of fixes.
This rework has taken approximately three and a half months, longer than anticipated. We are, however excited to launch it in the new year and feel that it was definitely worth the wait.
