An Inside Look into Application Development with Jeff Borders, CTO
When Jeff Borders first heard about Chelsie Patterson’s idea of Memento, he thought it was a great idea; as a former entrepreneur, he believes that “any idea that helps you solve your own problem is worth looking into.” Borders is the Head Application Developer at Memento and has dedicated his time building both the backend and front end and integrating application programming interfaces or APIs for payment process, video recordings, and other important components.
Borders was first interested in web development ever since high school when the “web” was very young. He thought it was cool to be able to add styles and images to blogs, he even created some websites and blogs of his own. From there, he earned a Bachelor’s degree in web development at Michigan State University and went on to pursue a career in web development. Immediately after college, he started his own web development business with a few of his friends. Although he and his coworkers eventually needed to close up shop, Borders learned a lot from the experience and admires Patterson’s dedication and perseverance. Borders currently works full-time at VividSeats, while, of course, dedicating his free time to Memento.
When Borders first started developing Memento, the designs and wireframes weren’t complete and still a work in progress, but he had a general idea of what was needed and what the product would look like. At a very high level, he started by solidifying the backend services. Next, he wrote the build tools for the backend and front end application and then ensured that the backend services were hooked up to the database. After that, he wrote proof of concepts for many of the front end capabilities such as scanning/reading QR codes and recording/saving video messages. At that point, the designs were finished and he was able to focus on presentation and enhancing the user experience.
For Borders, the most challenging parts of developing Memento is learning to work with a native application. A native application is a software program that is developed for a particular device, in this case an OS mobile device. The platform also created some unexpected constraints that he needed to work through. For example, a key feature of Memento is it allows users to record videos for their memento, but there isn’t a widely supported video recording API. Memento also wanted to allow users to pay with different types of payment options, but there isn’t a universal native support for this type of application.
The final product is designed to be entirely user focused, specifically featuring the QR code and video recording tools. The QR code allows users to redeem their Memento with the click of a button and the video recording feature allows users to personalize their gift with something that can last forever. Borders is implementing a registry code contribution flow, where users can create a unique code that they’ll reference on their wedding registries. Overall, Borders is excited to be part of the Memento journey and continues to help Memento grow and develop.
Written by Caitlyn Tien, Summer 2019 Intern