How we built TurnoFlow in 3 months

Building TurnoFlow was the project that made Devlane real. Before it, we were a team with ideas. After it, we were a studio with a shipped product.

The problem

Working in the hospitality industry in Mallorca, we saw the same problem everywhere: restaurants and hotels managing staff schedules with WhatsApp groups and spreadsheets. Shift swaps were chaos. Nobody knew who was working when. Managers spent hours every week on something that should take minutes.

We knew we could build something better.

Choosing the stack

We went with .NET and Blazor for the backend and frontend. This wasn't the trendy choice — most SaaS startups reach for Next.js or Rails. But we had deep experience with .NET, and Blazor gave us the ability to build a rich, interactive UI while sharing code between server and client.

For the database, PostgreSQL was the obvious choice. It handles complex scheduling queries well, and the ecosystem is mature and reliable.

We deployed to Azure, which gave us solid infrastructure without overcomplicating things. For a team of our size, managed services are worth every euro.

The three-month timeline

Month 1: Foundation. We built the core data model, authentication, and the basic schedule view. By the end of week four, we had a working prototype that could display shifts on a calendar.

Month 2: Features. This is where the product took shape. We added shift swapping, notifications, role-based access for managers and staff, and the time tracking module. We also built the onboarding flow, which turned out to be more complex than expected.

Month 3: Polish and launch. We spent the entire third month on testing, edge cases, mobile responsiveness, and performance. We ran a beta with three restaurants in Palma and fixed everything they threw at us.

Lessons learned

Start with one user type. We initially tried to build for both managers and staff simultaneously. That slowed us down. Once we focused on making the manager experience great first, everything clicked.

Blazor is underrated. The developer experience was excellent. Hot reload, component reuse, and strong typing across the stack saved us weeks of development time.

Ship early, iterate fast. Our beta users found issues we never would have caught internally. The feedback loop was invaluable.

What's next

TurnoFlow is live and growing. We're adding multi-location support, advanced analytics, and a Stripe integration for premium tiers. Building our own product taught us more about shipping software than any client project could — and now we bring that experience to every project we take on.

If you're thinking about building a SaaS product, let's talk. We've been through it, and we can help you avoid the mistakes we made.