I started coding at eleven and never stopped. I taught myself, kept adapting as the internet changed, and over the years I worked in almost every corner of software, from the everyday code to the table where the decisions get made. Today I lead technology for a living. But O Amigo Secreto didn't come from work. It came from spare time and a bit of stubbornness: I wanted to prove to myself that one person can still take a real product from nothing to live. It started as an experiment and kept growing. At some point I realized the draw was never the point. The point was what it does to people: they get closer.
The story behind the app
How a Secret Santa app became an entire platform, built in spare time by a single person.
How it all happened
Dec 2025
Day one
By the end of the first day there was already something running on screen: the backend up and the app opening. Within 48 hours there was a website, email, and the first features. And that day I made a call that became a rule for the whole project: no separate test environment. Everything I wrote at night went live the same night. It was nerve-racking, but that's how it kept moving fast from the start.
Dec 2025
More than Christmas
Early on it clicked: Secret Santa doesn't have to be only in December. There's the summer party, children's day, the office get-together, the birthday that's begging for a surprise. The app stopped being about a date on the calendar and became about any good excuse to bring people together. So it grew to handle all of them.
Jan–Feb 2026
Ready for the world
Time to open it up to everyone. I put it on iPhone, on Android, and right in the browser, so it would work wherever the person was. I added three languages and sign-in with Google, Apple and Facebook, so no one would get stuck at the front door. And I took privacy and security seriously from the start, not as some detail to fix later. It was a small product, but finally standing on its own.
May 2026
The turning point: the 30 Magic Days
After the launch the project sat still for a while. Life got busy and for a few months I barely touched it. When I came back, so did the idea I like most in the whole project: what if Secret Santa didn't end at the draw? I built a calendar that runs from the draw to the reveal, and each day opens a new surprise: one day a hint, the next a quiz, the next an anonymous confession. One click turned into a 30-day countdown. The game got more fun, and a reason to come back every day.
May 2026
Fairness and trust
Every draw carries a weight: if people don't trust it was fair, the rest doesn't matter. I didn't want a draw that asked for faith. I wanted one anyone could open and check for themselves. I added clear rules (a couple never draws its own partner), moderation to keep the space healthy, and I kept the draw's logic out in the open. Trust isn't something you fix with a nice banner. It comes with time, one draw after another.
Jul 2026
Eight fronts
By the turn of June into July, what started as an app had already become a lot of things at once: the app, the website, an installable web version, a gift store, and a blog in three languages. Eight fronts that talk to each other. The game also started to feel like a game: each group has a flame that lights up when everyone joins in, and you can even challenge someone to a chess match while you wait for the draw.
Jul 2026
The Little Gift comes to life
It was missing a face. The gift in the logo became the Little Gift, a mascot that opens the app with a pop and takes newcomers on a short walk: create the group, build the wishlist, understand the draw. I got the first version wrong. The walk interrupted too much and felt like an ambush. I rebuilt it in three rounds until it waited for the person to act, let them skip at any time, and felt fun instead of tedious. Around the same time the store learned to notice each person's taste, so it could suggest gifts that look more like the person getting them.
Jul 2026
I broke my own rule
Remember the day-one rule about shipping everything straight to live? In July I broke it. The project had grown enough that a late-night mistake could become a headache for a lot of people, so it got a rehearsal environment: everything goes through there first and only then goes for real. Along with it came alarms that warn me before a problem reaches anyone, bot protection at sign-up, and sign-in only with Google, Apple or Facebook. I also started the paperwork to turn it from a personal project into a company. At the time it felt like bureaucracy. Today I call it growing up.
Aug–Sep 2026
For the whole family
August went quiet again. Six weeks without touching anything, and this time I didn't fight it: the project knows how to wait. I came back in September with a list of what was missing. The kids and teens in the house, who don't always have a phone, can now join the draw through the account of whoever looks after them, under My family. Groups got a name, a country and their own currency, because a twenty-real gift here is not a twenty-dollar gift somewhere else. And the app, the store and the rest of the platform started speaking Portuguese, English and Spanish from end to end.
Sep 2026
Learning to take things out
After adding so much, it was time to take things out. The app had piled up too much: chess, missions, rankings, lots of nice little corners. Someone who just came to run a Secret Santa got lost among so many options. So I reorganized everything around what matters: the group, the draw, the wishlist and the exchange. The rest didn't disappear, it just stepped aside and shows up when it makes sense. It was the hardest change of the year, and the one I should have made sooner.
Sep 2026
A town square, with care
I also wanted groups to see each other. That's how The Square was born, a little corner where you can see what other groups are up to: vote on whether a gift is a find or a trap, follow the week's Giftometer, discover your group's personality. All of it without open chat between strangers, on purpose. Before opening that door, I added blocking and reporting that work without revealing who drew whom. A community without care isn't a community.
Oct 2026
Party clothes
In October the project got new clothes. The look became warmer and more festive, first in the app and the web version, then across the whole website, page by page. Each piece went live with a switch right next to it, so it could be rolled back in about a minute if anything went wrong. The store grew too: it now brings together partner stores from different places and learned to tidy itself up, removing whatever went stale or doesn't look like a gift.
Oct 2026
Today
Today the season is knocking at the door. Soon the year-end draws begin, and that's what all these months were for. Nine fronts talking to each other, and in the middle of them the same promise I don't plan to break: the essentials stay free, without that ad that gets in the way right at the good part. And it's not finished. Almost every day I come back to make something a bit better. I'm also still looking for people to join in: support, partnerships, anyone who wants to help carry this little game closer to more people.
tomorrow
The next little door
The world feels heavy and rushed these days, and maybe that's exactly why this little game makes more sense than it seems. Deep down it's just an excuse to remember there's someone on the other side, someone who deserves to be remembered and surprised once in a while. I don't know how big this project will be tomorrow. But I know what I don't want it to stop doing: bringing people closer, in a time that keeps pushing everyone apart. That's the next little door, and it's still waiting to be opened. Maybe by you.
How it was built
All of this came from one person, in spare time, with AI as a pair-programming partner. It became steady company: it moves the repetitive work along, helps me think through the architecture, reviews what I write, and puts up with my stubbornness at two in the morning. What would have been unthinkable for one person a few years ago became a possible routine. The numbers below aren't me bragging. They're just to show that it can be done.
Why I'm telling you this
If a product this size could be built alone, in spare time, with AI alongside, imagine what you can build. For me, that is the best part of the story.