Appcitas

The 10-Year Journey

Appcitas started in 2015 when I was just getting started in software development. It began as a simple idea: help small businesses manage their appointments without expensive software.

The problem was clear: Clinics, barbershops, and service businesses were drowning in appointment management. Phone calls, WhatsApp messages, missed appointments, double bookings. It was chaos.

What Appcitas Does

Appcitas automates the entire appointment lifecycle through WhatsApp:

Automated reminders - Patients receive WhatsApp reminders 24h and 2h before their appointment
Easy rescheduling - Reply to reschedule or cancel directly in WhatsApp
Smart scheduling - AI-powered suggestions based on business availability
Multi-location support - Perfect for clinics with multiple branches
Analytics dashboard - Track no-shows, popular times, and revenue

Technical Evolution

Over 10 years, Appcitas has gone through multiple rewrites:

v1 (2015-2017): PHP + MySQL

The classic LAMP stack. It worked, but scaling was painful.

v2 (2017-2019): Node.js + MongoDB

Moved to Node.js for better async handling. WhatsApp integration became the killer feature.

v3 (2019-Present): Node.js + PostgreSQL + AWS

Full cloud-native architecture. Lambda functions, SQS queues, and proper microservices.

Key Learnings

Building Appcitas for 10 years taught me:

Simple beats complex — The features that stuck were the simple ones
WhatsApp is king in LATAM — Email reminders had 20% open rates. WhatsApp has 95%+
Churn is your real enemy — Focus on making customers successful, not just acquiring them
Side projects need patience — It took 5 years to get meaningful revenue

What’s Next

Appcitas continues to evolve. The current focus is on:

AI-powered scheduling optimization
Integration with popular clinic management systems
Expansion to new markets beyond Colombia

Built by juanships.com — Part of my building in public journey.