Forem: hamizulfaiz

Software should serve the Business, not the other way around.

hamizulfaiz — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 01:00:00 +0000

I’ve seen it happen too many times:
A brilliant dev team spends 3 months building a perfect scalable architecture for a problem the business hasn't even validated yet.

The result? A technical masterpiece that nobody uses.

In the startup world, code is a liability until it’s solving a business problem. Here’s why your software should follow your business - not the other way around.

Code is a Tool, Not the Product

Your customers don't care if you're using Clean Architecture or a messy monolith. They care if the button works and solves their pain. If the business pivots (which it will), your code needs to be flexible enough to follow - not so rigid that it blocks the move.

The "Over-Engineering" Trap

We often build for 1 million users when we only have 10. That’s "Software leading the Business." Instead, build for the business reality of today.

It’s better to have a successful business with "messy" code than a failed startup with "perfect" code.

Communication > Syntax

A Senior Developer’s job isn't just writing functions; it’s understanding the Business Model. If you don't know how your company makes money, you can't write effective software for it.

Conclusion

Stop asking 'How can we build this?' and start asking 'Should we build this?' Let the business goals drive the git commits.

Originally shared in a more casual, local context (Malay) on my blog: Read the original here. I'm curious — have you ever worked at a place where the tech dictated the business? Let's discuss below!

Why I stopped overthinking the Livewire vs. Inertia debate (and how to pick one)

hamizulfaiz — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 15:57:33 +0000

The Laravel ecosystem is spoiled for choice. When building a modern web app, the first big decision is often: Livewire or Inertia? Both promise a Single Page Application (SPA) feel without the complexity of a decoupled API, but they take very different paths to get there.

⚡ Laravel Livewire: The PHP Purist’s Dream

Livewire allows you to build interactive interfaces without leaving the comfort of Laravel and Blade.

The Pros

Zero-JS Backend Logic: You can handle frontend state and validation directly in PHP. No need to build a separate REST or GraphQL API.
Tight Laravel Integration: It feels like a native part of the framework. If you know Laravel, you already know 90% of Livewire.
Full-Stack Components: With features like Livewire Volt, you can build single-file components that are extremely organized.
SEO-Friendly by Default: Since it renders on the server first, it's easier for search engines to crawl compared to heavy client-side SPAs.

The Cons

Server Round-trips: Every action (like clicking a button) usually requires a request to the server. Even with "entangle" and "lazy loading," there’s a slight latency compared to pure JS.
Scaling Complexity: For highly complex, "high-fidelity" UI (like a video editor or a complex drag-and-drop dashboard), Livewire can become harder to manage than a dedicated JS framework.

🚀 Inertia.js: The "Modern Monolith"

Inertia acts as the "glue" between Laravel and frontend powerhouses like Vue.js or React.

The Pros

Full Frontend Power: You get the entire ecosystem of Vue/React. Use any NPM package (like Framer Motion or Shadcn) seamlessly.
True SPA Experience: Since the frontend is handled by JavaScript, page transitions are nearly instantaneous, providing a premium user experience.
Familiar Routing: You still use web.php for routing and Controllers for data, so you don't have to build a decoupled API.
State Management: Easier to handle complex client-side states that don't need to be synced with the database every second.

The Cons

High Learning Curve: You need to be proficient in both Laravel (PHP) and a frontend framework (JS/TS).
Client-Side Overhead: Your bundle size will naturally be larger because you're shipping a full JS framework to the browser.

The Verdict

Choose Livewire if your priority is Speed of Development. It’s the king of productivity for internal tools, CRUD apps, and SEO-heavy sites.

Choose Inertia if your priority is User Experience (UX). If your app feels more like a "tool" (like Trello or Spotify) rather than a content site, the JS power of Inertia is worth the extra setup.

Bonus: SEO for inertia

To effectively implement SEO on inertia response. Put the meta title and description on the layout instead of inside the components so that when the first byte is loaded it contains all the seo meta tags and results in seo friendly result.

Note: This article is also available in Bahasa Melayu on my personal blog: Read here.

I Coded My Own Stock Analysis Trading Tool

hamizulfaiz — Sat, 17 Jul 2021 14:17:25 +0000

In my journey to the finance world as a coder, I thought about helping myself trade stock with the use of technical analysis tool.

Of course, there is TradingView, but i cant perform my own calculations, cant take the data to mix and merge with other data and few more things about data processing to help me with my analysis.

What I do before this is go to the broker after today session come to an end, and export all the data into excel, and then manually go trough all of it. which is a real pain.

Then one day, my friend give me access to his stock historical data in API (the best thing ever happen to me as a coder). And I begin my journey developing my own tool to analyze the stock using the Technical Analysis based on the historical data from the API.

I start with the base of everything, store the data into the DB. Choosing what the database engine will be is such a brief, since im a SQL guy, I love structuring the data, so MariaDB is the choosen one.

Choosing The Stack

As usual, thinking about the tech stack is the most fundamental before I even started to develop. Taking consideration about the cron job, API usage, users visit and actions to be made in the tool later on, it needs to be light, minimal and as non heavy as possible in the backend.

Calculations and screener

Since there are already ready made libraries to help me with technical analysis calculations, yep, I use that. cz I dont want to reinvent the wheel, whats imporant in the tool is to make the analysis with the available formula with mix and match of them and produce the results. and I finally can do the listing of the stocks that meet the criteria, calculations and pereference. yeah, it came alive~~ haha.

Test The Trade

After the tool has done its thing, I test the trade. Based on the stock listed in the tool, I confidently trade the stock on my broker platform. Yeah it definitely help me lessen the risk of trading the stock. Many of the trade has been having better winning rate.

The Tool Main Feature

As a simple trader, I believe in uncluttered interface. The simpler the interface, the better. why? because we are aiming for great result, instead of great pain. haha.

Summary

Making my own tool to analyze stock give me the experience and excitement thats nothing like other normal coding projects, wordpress or laravel, it definitely brings joy to me as it help me with trading.

Diving into the investment world as a Programmer

hamizulfaiz — Mon, 17 May 2021 17:22:54 +0000

Im a graduate in Diploma of Computer Science from Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) in Malacca, Malaysia. In 2010, I started my freelance web development journey after graduation and developing wordpress sites as well as app development from scratch (I was using CodeIgniter back then). Started my first coding job at Webqlo Sdn Bhd, a web development company. I had been doing lots of coding, and lots of projects within the 4 years of my time in there. After that I venture back into my own entrepreneurship.

Developing ECF Platform

When my journey in entrepreneurship are taking a downturn and in dire need to stabilize my funds, I joined 1337 Ventures Sdn Bhd (a.k.a Leet Ventures) on July 2019. Leet Ventures is a venture capital firm, located in Kuala Lumpur. The company received Equity Crowdfunding Licence by Securities Commission Malaysia around that time. My main role in the company is to develop the ECF platform which is now called Leet Capital.

Starting my Journey to Investment World

In order for me to better develop the system for the platform, (aside from the codes of course). I definitely need to know about Investing which at that time im just a beginner, I dont even have a CDS account if I want to buy some stocks. Yeah, beats me. I didnt even know which stock should I buy and how to even look at the stock charting.

Investment has been an interesting topic for me ever since I join the company. From what I know, investment are all about putting your money somewhere and let it work for you, and you need a LOT of money to invest in order to make more money, that is my initial basic understanding for investment. Apparently Leet Ventures has been organizing many type of events that helped me learn on the sides. I now know that you dont require lots of money to invest, in stocks, you can get started to invest real cheap. some stock price can cost as low as RM0.10 per share. (it comes with a risk though)

One of the notable event that upgrade my understanding of investment is the Accelerator Bootcamp. People can participate in the bootcamp to learn about how to pitch their business to the investor. Starting from the idea, making a biz plan with lean canvas, what to take into consideration when doing pitch to investors, and finally receive investment funds. I learned about pre-seed, series A, Series B, equity, etc2. phew, that was a world I never come across into, eventhough I am entrepreneur myself (well, solopreneur)

Challenge to develop ECF Platform

Well, the platform development was started from scratch. Begin with the POLC method (my way of managing project), I do the stack selection, which is LAMP. Obviously choosing Laravel as the base because of the robust out of the box libraries and well documented framework to kickstart the project. Yep, you guess it right (if you are guessing). It wasnt just pure PHP, its a mix of Laravel + vanillaJS + VueJS + ReactJS + webpack and much more. With multiple component, multiple features, and multiple many more FrontEnd and BackEnd stuff cz a lot has happen since version 1.

Since this is an investment platform, MySQL wasnt the best when it comes to performance, so MariaDB is the choosen one.

The most challenging part wasnt the choosing of stack, but the whole ecosystem process. Trust me, investment system is simple at first, it gets trickier as the progress unfold.

Another notable investment knowledge I learned when developing this ECF system is that, there is generally 3 types of investor.

Retail Investor
A person, (anyone) who has extra money that can invest up to RM5,000.00 belong to this type.
Angel Investor
A person who is a High Net Worth Individual, those who have wealth up to RM 3 million.
Sophisticated Investor
An entity who has annual income more than RM400,000. VC is one of the example for this type.

My Final Thought

Becoming an investor was never reachable until recently. I started to explore stocks on Bursa Malaysia, learned about Techical Analysis, Fundamental Analysis, also about Startups, due diligence when deciding to invest in a company, and many more finance stuff. Which has bring and impact to the way I look at funds.

Investment wasnt just about stock, there is ECF, P2P, Robo Advisor, Fix Deposit, Crypto, and more!

Being a pioneer developer for Leet Capital ECF platform has brought change to me in a great way. A change that transforms me from just an ordinary coder to the coder who invest. It sure is one of my turning point on achieving better financial desicion.