B2B restaurant reservation platform for Southeast Asia, taken from idea to live product

End to end product ownership: research, brand, build, legal and go to market, alone.

RoleProduct owner: research, brand, build, legal, go to market

TimelineOngoing development

StatusLive, ongoing development

StackNext.js, Anthropic API, n8n

The situation

Restaurant reservation infrastructure in Southeast Asia is fragmented. Venues rely on phone calls and messaging apps to manage bookings, and the reservation platforms that do exist were built for other markets and do not fit how venues here actually operate.

What I did

I built the whole thing: market and competitor research, the business model, the brand and logo, the product specification, the build itself, the legal framework, technical SEO, and the content and go to market pipeline. Buqq is the answer to whether I can take a product from an idea to something live in the market, on my own.

Diagram

FIG. 01 — BUQQ SYSTEM DIAGRAM, PENDING THE FINAL ASSET.

Key decisions and tradeoffs

Four decisions that shaped the product, the alternative in each case, and what the choice cost.

Decision 01

Deliberate B2B only framing, with a business status warranty in the terms

ALTERNATIVEopen Buqq to consumer diners as well as venues, which is the more familiar reservation platform shape.WHY NOTa consumer marketplace changes who Buqq is liable to and how disputes get resolved. Restricting the platform to verified businesses, backed by a warranty in the terms, keeps the legal and trust surface small enough for one person to stand behind.COSTthe addressable market is smaller at launch, and every new venue has to be qualified as a genuine business rather than simply signing up.

Decision 02

Moving pricing data server side in Next.js

ALTERNATIVErender pricing client side, which is the default and the faster thing to build.WHY NOTcrawlers and AI assistants reading the site could not see the pricing at all, at exactly the moment buyer research is shifting toward AI assisted vendor comparison.COSTmore of the page has to be rendered on the server rather than left to the client, which was extra upfront work for a page that would not otherwise have needed it.

Decision 03

A content automation pipeline with approval steps rather than fully automated publishing

ALTERNATIVEpublish AI generated content automatically, which scales fastest.WHY NOTunreviewed content published under Buqq's name is a reputational risk with no upside proportionate to the time saved.COSTpublishing throughput is capped by how much I can personally review, which is slower than full automation, but it is the trade I would make again.

Decision 04

A support chatbot with session history and email escalation, rather than full automation

ALTERNATIVElet the chatbot handle every support conversation end to end.WHY NOTsome questions a paying business customer asks need a human answer, and getting that wrong costs the account relationship, not just the conversation.COSTescalation adds response time and my own time directly, but it is the difference between a support tool and a support system.

Current status

Live and in the market, with ongoing development.

Stack and timeline

Buqq runs on Next.js, with the Anthropic API powering the support chatbot and content pipeline, n8n handling automation, Telegram for support escalation, and Resend for transactional email.

Next.jsAnthropic APIn8nTelegramResend

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