My journey in attempting to build faith-based tech side projects
Hi 👋, my name is Clément.
Born and raised in France, I now call Montréal, Canada home. I am the creator of The Good Letters and wanted to share with you my journey toward faith-based side projects. It all began a few years ago
The first attempt: Blessme. 🤓
In 2016, I made a significant shift from the sales and marketing field to software engineering. Two years later, in 2018, I made another life-changing decision — I gave my life to Jesus. My future wife was evangelical for years, and though I hadn’t been baptized yet, we attended church every Sunday. (Yes I was in love with her)
In 2016 during my transition to a software developer, I had the opportunity to lead an end-of-bootcamp project. Guided by what I believe to be God’s plan, I decided to create an intercessions website named Blessme. This platform allowed people to submit prayer requests, and Christians worldwide could join in prayer. While the website was basic, it had a fun feature — you could record an audio prayer. If you’re curious, you can watch the project presentation video in 🇫🇷.
This marked my first tech project with a faith-based theme, despite not being explicitly Christian. Using Ruby on Rails and basic HTML/CSS, it wasn’t overly technical, but given my three months of coding experience, it presented a challenge.
After graduation, I attempted to sustain Blessme, but job hunting and my evolving tech skills diverted my attention.
The second attempt: MoodToVerse 🙏
Fast forward to my baptism and my second faith-based project, MoodToVerse — an Android app focused on matching users with relevant Bible verses based on their mood, needs, and chosen topics. It was build using React Native through Expo with a Ruby API. While live on the Google Play Store for a period, I eventually shut it down due to server costs.
The code is open source, so be prepared to see high quality code 🙈 https://github.com/morissetcl/verse_feeling
The third attempt: Blessme (mobile app)🙏
At the end of 2019, my wife and I decided to move to Toronto. Just before our flight, the pandemic struck, leaving us unemployed and waiting for the Canadian border to reopen. During this period, I revived Blessme as a mobile app. Still I used Expo and a Ruby on Rails backend.
Despite the effort (I believe I intermittently worked on it for more than a year in addition of my current gig.), I eventually abandoned it due to maintenance issues and waning motivation. While the revival wasn’t a success, it equipped me with mobile development skills and taught me a valuable lesson — iterate and ship faster rather than fine-tune and risk losing motivation after months of coding.
Why do I think the past projects did not work? 🤔
- Spending too much time coding without feedback.
- Introverted personality and difficulties in communicating on a personal project.
- God was training me to be prepared for the right opportunity when it arises.
And now? ☀️
Now, at the end of 2023, during my paternity leave (🎉), I received the idea of sending anonymous letters to strangers to share the message of Jesus Christ’s love. In a world saturated with instant communication, I felt that a letter could be more impactful than an Instagram story or an SMS. Below is the pitch:
Through The Good Letters, we believe that every individual should have the chance to discover and receive the message of love and hope from Jesus Christ. In a world moving at a rapid pace, where we often don’t have time to appreciate the beauty of Christ, we see your letters as a meaningful pause.
Here, you have the unique opportunity to send anonymous letters filled with inspiring messages based on the love of Jesus Christ. The goal is to spread joy, hope, and kindness anonymously to people you don’t know.
Let’s spread the gospel one mailbox at a time.
That’s all, folks! In a second article, I will detail my strategy to ship The Good Letters as soon as possible without being tempted to give up. 🤞
Cheers.
