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Founder Story

Started With Zero Coding Experience. 700+ Hours Later, I Shipped My First App.

A founder story about going from no production coding experience to shipping MapleLedger after more than 700 hours of building, testing, and refining.

June 2026

In March 2026, I had never written a line of production code.

I was a real estate agent in British Columbia, Canada, spending most of my time dealing with clients, properties, paperwork, and bookkeeping. Like many self-employed people, I constantly found myself buried under receipts, mileage logs, spreadsheets, and accounting tasks that always seemed to get pushed to the last minute.

Over the years, I learned something important: the more organized your records are, the less time your accountant spends sorting through paperwork, which usually means lower accounting fees.

But I also realized something else.

No accountant can magically find receipts that were never saved.

At the end of the day, keeping accurate records is still the responsibility of the business owner.

I found myself stuck between two options:

  • Spend hours manually organizing receipts and expenses
  • Hand over a pile of documents and hope nothing gets missed

Neither option felt great.

So I decided to build my own solution.

MapleLedger receipt scanning workflow showing receipt details ready for review

Starting From Zero

When I say zero coding experience, I mean it.

In March 2026, the first technical tool I learned was Git.

I had never built an app before. I had never managed a server. I had never designed a database.

Most of the development process looked something like this:

  1. Figure out a workflow or business problem
  2. Ask ChatGPT to help design a solution
  3. Use Codex to implement it
  4. Review, test, and refine the result
  5. Repeat hundreds of times

AI helped me move faster, but it was still a supporting tool. I had to understand the bookkeeping problem, test receipt edge cases, and decide what was safe enough to ship.

Along the way, I learned about:

  • Git and version control
  • React Native and Expo
  • Databases and migrations
  • Authentication systems
  • Mobile app deployment
  • Subscriptions and payments
  • OCR pipelines
  • Privacy and data storage
  • App Store and Google Play publishing

Things I didn't even know existed a few months earlier.

The Hardest Problem: Receipt Scanning

The most difficult part of the project was receipt scanning.

I probably spent more than 200 hours improving OCR accuracy and handling edge cases.

At first, I assumed receipt scanning would be relatively straightforward.

I was wrong.

Canadian receipts turned out to be surprisingly complicated.

Different provinces use different tax systems:

  • GST
  • HST
  • PST
  • QST

Some fuel receipts include tax inside the displayed price.

Some receipts show subtotal and taxes separately.

Others don't.

Every retailer seems to have its own layout.

What looked simple on paper became hundreds of hours of testing and refinement.

Building MapleLedger

After more than 700 hours of development, the result became MapleLedger.

MapleLedger is a bookkeeping and expense tracking app designed for:

  • Self-employed professionals
  • Freelancers
  • Landlords
  • Small business owners

Key features include:

  • AI-assisted receipt scanning
  • Mileage tracking
  • Income and expense tracking
  • Local-first data storage
  • Support for Canada, the United States, and other regions
  • Additional support for Canadian tax workflows (GST/HST/PST/QST)

The app is available on:

  • iPhone & iPad
  • Android
  • Web

What Surprised Me Most

Building the app itself wasn't the hardest part.

The small details were.

Things like:

  • App Store approvals
  • Subscription systems
  • Backup and restore workflows
  • Data exports
  • OCR accuracy
  • Privacy considerations
  • Edge cases nobody thinks about until users encounter them

Every feature seemed to have ten hidden problems behind it.

The deeper I went, the more I realized how much work goes into making software feel simple.

Looking Ahead

MapleLedger is still very early.

I'm continuing to improve receipt scanning, bookkeeping workflows, reporting, and overall usability based on real-world feedback.

Whether the app becomes a large business or remains a side project, building it has already taught me far more than I expected.

Going from zero coding experience to shipping a production app in a few months has been one of the most challenging and rewarding things I've ever done.

If you're thinking about building something yourself, my biggest lesson is simple:

You don't need to know everything before you start.

You just need to be willing to keep solving the next problem.