Building a 4-role real-time SaaS taught me one uncomfortable lesson: the hard part was never the code.

I've been building RestaurantOS — one platform connecting Owner, Kitchen, Waiter, and Cashier in a single live workflow (Table → Order → Kitchen → Serve → Billing → Reports).

The tech stack was the easy part. The real challenge: keeping 4 different roles in sync in real time without any of them stepping on each other's data — a waiter updating a table while the kitchen marks an item ready while the cashier is mid-billing.

That forced decisions most tutorials never cover: ⚡ How much state should live client-side vs. source-of-truth server-side ⚡ What "real-time" actually needs to mean per role (a kitchen screen needs sub-second updates, a report dashboard doesn't) ⚡ Designing failure states — what happens when the waiter's app loses connection mid-order

Currently redesigning the UI/UX layer too (motion, better visual hierarchy) while keeping this real-time core intact.

🔗 nirvaantech.in

If you've built multi-role or real-time systems — curious what broke first for you. And if you're a founder who needs something like this built, my DMs are open.

the role based flow is easy to follow. what part was hardest to keep real time?

Day 3 of working on my project for the Lovable Challenge.

And somehow, almost one full day of those three went into the intro you see when the page first opens.

Not because it was necessary — mostly because I’ve wanted to try something like this for a long time.

Web design and development are far from my main field, so I kept putting this idea off. This challenge finally gave me a reason to test it properly — and seeing it actually work is ridiculously satisfying.

The video was converted into an image sequence and tied directly to scrolling on desktop and swiping on mobile, so the animation is controlled by the user as they move through the page.

Right now the project is already at Build 4.2.3.

The backend is working properly, the main mechanics are in place, but visually… there’s still a lot to redo. The current plan is to rebuild almost the entire visual layer before the final version.

I also found out today that Lovable reduced the number of prize spots quite significantly — apparently, there will only be 3 finalists.

That definitely makes the odds a little more painful 😅

But either way, I’m already getting a new portfolio case out of this project, and I’m finally experimenting with things I’ve wanted to build for a long time.

How’s everyone else doing?

Still working on your project, or have you already submitted it?

Or did you decide not to participate at all? If so, I’m curious — what made you skip it?

That intro effect looks sick! 🔥 By the way, I'm working on a car showroom project too, but not sure if I'll manage to finish and submit it on time. If luck is on my side, it’s going to be a really fun competition haha. Good luck!