Work · The story
Melro.io
A founder-mode side experiment — software for local businesses.
The company I run on the side. Building customized software for local businesses — a long-term experiment in thinking like a founder, not just an engineer. Not the main headline, but the thing that keeps me honest.
TL;DR
A deliberately small, deliberately local side company — the place I practice the full product loop, not just the engineering.
At a glance
- Ongoing founder experiment since 2023
- Customized software for local businesses
- Funds itself; doesn't compete with day-job focus
- Status
- ongoing
- Period
- 2023 — present
- Role
- Founder & engineer
- Stack
- React · Next.js · TypeScript · Node.js
01
Problem
I wanted the full loop of building for real users — finding the problem, not just implementing tickets — without quitting my day job.
I wanted to understand the full loop of building software for real users — not just implementing tickets, but finding the problem, talking to people, shipping something small, and watching it survive contact with reality. A side company was the most honest way to practice that without quitting my day job.
02
Approach
Deliberately small and local — I wear every hat, and the engineering is the easy part.
Melro.io is deliberately small and deliberately local. I work with local businesses on customized software, which means I wear every hat: scoping, building, supporting, and occasionally saying no. The engineering is the easy part — the real work is figuring out what's actually worth building and what a small business will actually use.
I treat it as a long-running experiment rather than a startup with a growth curve. The goal isn't scale; it's learning to think in product and ownership terms.
03
Outcome
Still going — and the biggest shift is in how I approach my day-job work, not the codebase.
Still going. The biggest shift isn't in the codebase — it's in how I approach my day-job work. Founding on the side makes you ask better questions: who is this for, what happens after we ship, what's the smallest thing that's actually useful. That perspective is worth more than any single feature I've built.
04
What I took away
- The hardest part of building a product isn't building — it's deciding what not to build.
- Local, small, and slow is a valid strategy when the goal is learning, not scale.
- Founder thinking compounds: it makes you a better engineer at your day job, not a distracted one.
Want to talk about building something like this? Let's talk or email pedrocarlos.ti@gmail.com.