Four years, one webcam, a podcast I never planned. Five chapters, from 2022 to now.
2022
In 2022 I had just started: studying, learning the basics, with no idea what I wanted to become.
Then a teacher suggested freelancing. I already had a daughter to support, so I listened.
There are no screenshots from this year. I was not posting anything yet, and I had nothing to show. But every chapter after this one exists because of that suggestion.
2023
In May 2023 I posted my first coding video on TikTok as @coding_with_danielzan: a console app, a webcam in the corner of the screen, and a caption saying I was open for commissions.
Java Swing GUIs came next. A PWD profiling system, an audit management system, a beneficiary list. School activities and capstones for other students, one DM at a time.
Some videos were just tutoring: switch cases, loops, the basics. Explaining it on camera is how I actually learned it.
2024
The comment sections changed. People stopped asking how much and started asking what I used for the WHERE condition on delete. I answered every one of them with a video.
Node.js and Express entered the stack. The admin side of a library system reached 406 likes; a CRUD reply video, 320. The questions got harder, and so did the answers.
612 commits on GitHub in 2024
2025
Commission work turned into client work. A corporate website for AS Builders Management & Corporation, a booking system for FixCondo, a product catalog for NCC Luxe Collection, and a shop site for Hesa, a gaming creator with 214K followers.
Then the stages. I was recognized on stage at ITD Day 2025 at Cavite State University - Naic. In August, team DIPTek placed fourth at the Agri Tech Innovate Bootcamp and Mentoring Session in Quezon City, pitching a fish-eye analysis tool for aquaculture.
And then UPAMATE: an all-in-one property management platform for tenants and landlords. Payments, maintenance requests, utilities, finance, an AI assistant. I am the founder, and I am also the developer.
681 commits on GitHub in 2025
2026
This year the work went open source. Laravel packages for file validation, activity logs and security scanning, an enterprise UI kit, a Docker CRUD starter, and a set of Claude skills for Laravel teams.
The podcast started too. The Builder's Table: founders, a Microsoft MVP, a whitehat hacker, creators I used to just watch. I did not imagine I could invite them. They said yes.
538 commits on GitHub in 2026, as of August
Real stories behind building startups and software. A podcast by UPAMATE, hosted by me. Eleven episodes, eleven people I used to watch from the audience.
The honest version, taken from the story above. None of it is clever. All of it worked.
Start before you have a plan.
In 2022 I had no idea what I wanted to become. A teacher suggested freelancing, and I had a daughter to support. That was enough to begin.
Post the ugly version.
The 2023 videos had a webcam in the corner and a bedroom wall behind me. They still got me my first commissions.
Take the small jobs seriously.
School activities taught me scope, deadlines and clients long before any company did.
Commit every day, even when nobody is watching.
612, then 681, then 538 and counting. The graph is the proof nobody asks for and everybody checks.
Ship something with your name on it.
UPAMATE is the thing I point to. Clients and judges care about what exists, not what you plan to build.
Sit at tables with people better than you.
Eleven episodes later, the people I used to watch are people I message. Ask. They say yes more than you think.