Why Supabase is the Backbone of Amics

Building a startup is like steering a fast-moving ship while designing the navigation system in real-time. It’s fast, messy, and exhilarating. That’s exactly what we’re doing at Amics—a startup dedicated to fighting loneliness with the help of friendly, conversational AI. Amics is about creating meaningful connections, and as a fast-moving startup, we needed a backend solution that wouldn’t slow us down. Enter Supabase.

What is Amics?

Amics (which means "friends" in Catalan) is an AI-powered companion that checks in on users through phone calls, acting like a best friend. Our goal is to make people feel heard, supported, and less alone. But building something that interacts so personally and meaningfully with users comes with its own set of technical challenges.

As a startup, we’re constantly iterating—building, testing, and improving at lightning speed. To achieve this, we needed a backend platform that could keep up with our rapid pace of development while handling all the heavy lifting in the background.

Why We Chose Supabase

When it came time to choose our backend infrastructure, we explored a range of excellent options. Hosting on a VPS, AWS RDS, and other robust solutions were all on the table. These options were appealing because they offered flexibility and strong performance, but they also came with higher setup complexity and maintenance overhead. For a fast-moving project like Amics, we needed something that let us focus on building features without getting bogged down by infrastructure management.

However, we ultimately decided on Supabase because it struck the perfect balance between power, simplicity, and developer experience. (Full disclosure: I’m familiar with Supabase and have even hosted meetups about it, which made the decision easier.)

Here’s why Supabase stood out for us:

1. Ease of Use: Supabase is incredibly developer-friendly. It’s built on PostgreSQL, which means we get the reliability of a battle-tested database without the steep learning curve.

2. Comprehensive Features: Supabase offers a versatile set of backend tools that cover multiple needs in one platform. With a single platform, we get:

   • Database: A powerful, scalable PostgreSQL database.

   • Authentication: Seamless user management with support for social logins.

   • Edge Functions: Serverless functions for handling custom logic.

   • Cron Jobs: Automating repetitive tasks like scheduling calls.

3. Speed of Development: Supabase lets us focus on solving the problem of loneliness, not reinventing the backend. With its out-of-the-box solutions, we can move from idea to implementation in record time.

4. Scalability: Amics is designed to grow, and Supabase’s infrastructure scales with us seamlessly. We don’t have to worry about outgrowing our tools.

A Snapshot of Where We Are

Here’s the thing about startups: they’re messy. At this stage, our priority is speed and delivering value to our users. We’re optimizing for frictionless development rather than perfectly polished systems. Things aren’t fully optimized yet, and they might change as we grow and learn. But Supabase gives us the flexibility to evolve while still providing a solid foundation.

How Supabase Supports Amics

Let’s get a little technical. Here are some specific ways we’re leveraging Supabase:

• Database: It’s the heart of Amics. User profiles, call schedules, preferences—everything lives here. With relational databases, we can structure data efficiently and query it at lightning speed.

• Authentication: We’ve implemented user sign-ups, logins, and role-based access effortlessly. Supabase’s authentication handles the complexities so we can focus on building features.

• Edge Functions: These serverless functions power our custom logic, like calculating call intervals and handling real-time updates.

• Cron Jobs: Automating call schedules is a breeze with Supabase’s cron jobs. This lets us ensure users get their check-ins on time without manual intervention.

Looking Ahead

This is just the beginning. As Amics grows, we’ll continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible, using technology to foster real, meaningful connections. Stay tuned for future posts where we’ll dive deeper into the technical details of how we’re building Amics to combat loneliness.

We’re excited about the path ahead, and with the right tools (like Supabase), we’re confident we can make a difference. If you’re curious about how we’re using technology to create change, stick around—we’re just getting started.