Qitup is a passion-driven digital community for BBQ lovers, founded by Dennis and John. What started as swapping rib pics, tips, and techniques across group chats turned into a dedicated platform where pitmasters, smokers, and backyard grillers can share creations, ask questions, post recipes, and learn from each other. Dot Com Infoway (DCI) was engaged to design, develop, and launch a scalable, real-time, user-first web application at qitup.com.

Objectives:

• Build a scalable, reliable community platform for BBQ enthusiasts.
• Enable real-time communication and engagement (posts, comments, notifications).
• Offer intuitive UX with social features (likes, replies, bookmarks).
• Provide admin tools for moderation and community governance.
• Ensure the platform is mobile-responsive and performance-optimized.
  

Technical Challenges:

• Implementing real-time feeds, comments, and notifications.
  
• Designing for high media usage (images/videos of BBQ content).
  
• Ensuring scalability for growing community interactions.
  
• Building a moderation-ready backend with robust role/access control.
  

Functional Challenges:

• Delivering a sticky, engagement-first experience (likes, comments, bookmarks, profiles).
  
• Managing user activity history and content discovery.
  
• Balancing authentic BBQ culture with clean, modern UI.
  

Project Management Challenges:

• Prioritizing MVP scope while planning for future community features.
  
• Maintaining rapid iteration with continuous feedback from founders.
  
• Coordinating design, dev, infra, and moderation workflows.

Scalability Challenges:

• Handling bursty engagement (event days, recipe drops, challenges).
  
• Efficient media storage & delivery without degrading performance.
  

Security Challenges:

• Protecting user data and accounts (social logins, sessions).
• Preventing spam, abuse, and inappropriate content.

Proposed Solution:

Overview:

DCI built Qitup as a ReactJS + Node.js + MongoDB platform with Socket.IO for real-time interactions, hosted on AWS for elasticity and reliability. A custom Admin Panel empowers moderators to manage content, users, and community standards.

Key Components:

Community Feed Module

• Post photos, questions, recipes, techniques
  
• Like, comment, reply, bookmark

User Profiles & Activity

• Profile pages with history, stats, and contributions
  
• Social login & secure authentication

Real-time Interaction Layer

• Live updates on posts, comments, and notifications via Socket.IO

Moderation & Admin Panel

• Content approval, reporting, and takedown workflows
  
• Role-based access for moderators/admins
  

Notifications & Engagement

• Push / in-app notifications for replies, mentions, follows

Responsive UI/UX

• Mobile-first, visually warm design reflecting BBQ culture

Technical Specifications:

• Front-end: ReactJS
  
• Back-end: Node.js, Express.js
  
• Database:  MongoDB
  
• Real-time:  Socket.IO
  
• Infrastructure: AWS (auto-scaling, secure, performant)
  
• Security: Secure authentication, role-based authorization, input validation