Lagooona
A Russian social network for photos, videos and stories, launched in spring 2022 as a replacement for the blocked Instagram: a recommendation feed, creator ratings, comments and chat. iOS and Android app built with React Native, backend on NestJS.
Under NDA — happy to walk through the architecture and the code in a call.
Outcome
- 3
- app stores: App Store, Google Play and AppGallery
- 2
- platforms from a single React Native codebase
- 3
- months from the contractors' broken prototype to a rewritten app
Product screens
Feed: stories from followed accounts at the top, photo and video posts below. Videos play inline, sound turns on with a tap.
A creator profile with the average score under the avatar. Ratings are one to five stars; after voting the app shows the current score.
Post comments: each comment has its own likes and replies, so a discussion doesn't collapse into a flat wall of messages.
Hashtag search: posts on a topic are gathered into a mosaic grid — this is how people find others with shared interests on Lagooona.
The business problem
Lagooona was announced on 29 March 2022, shortly after Instagram was blocked in Russia: bloggers and small businesses were promised a new platform where content could be monetised and ads targeted by gender, interests and location. The first version was outsourced, and it never took off: deadlines slipped, the Android builds didn't work and the iOS version failed TestFlight review. The app had to be rewritten from scratch and shipped to the App Store, Google Play and Huawei AppGallery before the audience lost interest in Russian alternatives.
My role
Principal Software Engineer: once the contractors were gone, I owned the architecture and the team. The project was rewritten from scratch — I designed the new mobile app and backend, built the development team, ran code review and set up the release process across three app stores.
The solution
The client was rebuilt in React Native: one codebase produces iOS and Android builds, and the Android build also ships to Huawei AppGallery for devices without Google services. The NestJS backend serves the core social-network flows: profiles and follows, photo and video posts, stories, likes and comments, direct messages, hashtag search and the recommendation feed. Profile ratings are a separate mechanic: users give a creator one to five stars, and the average score sits under the avatar to help people find strong creators. Next on the public roadmap were a targeted advertising dashboard, Look short videos and NFT mechanics for content. By late August 2022 the app had reached version 1.0.30.