Social Agent

Hong Kong’s first platform connecting companies with Chinese sales agents—a two-sided B2B marketplace with web portals, native iOS & Android apps, and escrow-style lead payments. Built as co-founder & CTO; acquired about eight months after my departure.

Role Co-Founder & CTO

Domain B2B SaaS / Marketplace / Lead Generation

Focus Multi-portal architecture, native iOS/Android apps, two-sided marketplace, payments & escrow

Website socialagent.me

Social Agent system architecture diagram showing the Search Portal (SP), Internal Client Management, and Client Portal (CP) and how they connect — Two-portal architecture: Search Portal discovers and pre-qualifies leads; Client Portal handles customer-facing workflows—each on its own domain and database

The Problem

Leads in China Were Hard to Reach

Overseas companies wanted Chinese customers, but the path ran through Weibo, WeChat, local forums, and a fragmented network of freelance sales agents—with no reliable way to find, vet, brief, or pay them.

A Marketplace Without Trust

The natural model—businesses post jobs, agents apply, leads flow back, payments release—only works if every stage can be verified. Without a structured way to confirm a lead was real and relevant, quality raced to the bottom on both sides.

Tools Built for a Different Market

Existing CRM and lead tools assumed Western platforms and a single language. They didn’t support Chinese-platform workflows, Chinese-language UI, or the multi-channel agent work the China market actually ran on.

Constraints & Considerations

Founding Stage, Solo Engineer — Architecture, infrastructure, mobile APIs, web, payments, and documentation were one person’s responsibility. Decisions had to be fast, and abstractions had to survive the team that would take over.
China-Market Reality — Based in Hong Kong, product running into mainland China. Sina Weibo was the launch platform. Chinese-primary UI and platform-specific concepts (follow types, lead cues, network trust signals) needed first-class support from day one.
Separate Surfaces, Shared Model — Lead discovery was experiment-heavy and needed to iterate fast. Customer workflows needed stability. Separating them onto different domains and databases kept experiments from breaking the customer surface.
Mobile-First for Agents — Agents in the field needed to discover candidates, capture leads, communicate with prospects, and submit qualified leads from a phone. The web platform served businesses; mobile was the primary agent surface.
Payments & Trust — Lead payments had to flow through international and China-friendly gateways, with credits priced up front and released to agents on verification. Without that escrow-style release, the marketplace couldn’t function.

Role & Leadership

As co-founder & CTO, I owned the technical product from inception through the founding/startup phase—alongside co-founders Michael Michelini (CEO) and Doug Pierce (marketing & SEO), with Dan Sont joining shortly after to build the native iOS and Android apps against the APIs I designed.

Two-Portal Architecture

Designed the system as a Client Portal for businesses to manage leads and agents, and a Search Portal for discovering and qualifying leads. Each portal had its own database, deployment, and iteration cadence—connected by a shared lead data model.

Mobile Apps & API

Built REST APIs so native iOS and Android apps could capture leads, browse jobs, and submit qualified leads from the field. Every Client Portal feature had to be addressable via API from day one—mobile-first as a discipline, not an afterthought.

Lead Verification Workflow

Designed the email-driven verification flow: hot lead → client verifies or declines → agent notified → payment released on verification. That trust primitive made the two-sided marketplace viable for both sides.

Infrastructure & Handoff

Stood up multi-provider hosting (AWS, Softlayer, DigitalOcean) with separate environments, encrypted backups, transactional email, and versioned database migrations. Authored systems overview, feature specs, API specs, and development procedures so the next engineer could continue without me.

Social Agent co-founders at a startup event: Michael Michelini (CEO, left), Chris Li (CTO, center), and Doug Pierce (marketing & SEO, right) — Co-founders Michael Michelini (CEO), Chris Li (CTO), and Doug Pierce (marketing & SEO)—later featured in Hong Kong Business magazine’s coverage of the company

Approach & Execution

Two cooperating products on separate domains, native mobile apps, and a WordPress marketing site—each with its own database and cadence, tied together by a shared lead model. If a feature couldn’t be addressed from a phone, it wasn’t ready to ship.

Client Portal — Business Workflows

Account and contact management, worker/manager roles, lead lifecycle with follow-up scheduling, interaction history, keyword watch lists, and time-bounded reports. Backed by Stripe and PayPal for credit-based lead pricing and escrow-style payments.

Search Portal — Discovery & Quality

Keyword intent tools, automated lead discovery from Weibo and other monitored platforms, quality scoring, and a review queue before leads were promoted to the Client Portal. Kept experimental so discovery could iterate without risking customer workflows.

Mobile API & Agent Workflows

REST endpoints for auth, profile, lead capture with China-relevant contact channels (including QQ and WeChat), and paginated job recommendations. Later API work extended contacts import, commenting, push notifications, and analytics as the mobile product matured.

Payments & Credits

Credit-based pricing with fees on both sides of a lead transfer, refunds scoped to lead cost, and payment release gated on verification. Stripe for international paths; PayPal for China-friendly ones.

Iterations

Shipped V1 in early 2013 (Weibo-focused); expanded to multi-platform social support mid-year. Specs and a later UI refresh continued after my departure—possible because the architecture and documentation were transferable.

Information architecture—login, signup, and separate funnels for agents and businesses

Social Agent mobile app dashboard in Chinese showing news, latest agents, and tab navigation — Android agent app—Chinese-language dashboard and tab navigation for field work

Social Agent mobile company detail screen showing a real estate company in Singapore with 3 jobs and 10 active agents — Company detail on mobile—posted jobs, active agents, and per-job pricing

Outcome & Impact

Full Platform Shipped

Built from zero: Client Portal, Search Portal, native iOS and Android apps on a shared REST API, plus marketing site—with proper environment separation across providers.

Trust Built Into the Product

The verification workflow and escrow-style payment release made agents willing to participate and businesses willing to pay up front for leads. Without that primitive, the marketplace wouldn’t have held.

Acquired November 2014

Acquired by Unchained Apps / Gigabud, covered by TechInAsia—about eight months after my departure. The platform, codebase, and integrations transferred as part of the deal.

Documentation That Outlived the Role

Systems overview, feature and API specs, sitemaps, wireframes, and development procedures enabled the team to keep shipping after I left—including later specs and a UI refresh underway at acquisition.

Key Takeaway

In a two-sided marketplace, the trust primitives are the product. Credit pricing, lead verification, and payment release on verification weren’t features on top of the marketplace—they were the marketplace. Build those first; the rest is plumbing.

Skills & Tools

CSS Mobile Responsiveness Performance Optimization Code Review Co-Founder & CTO Experience Two-Sided Marketplace Architecture Native iOS & Android Apps CodeIgniter / PHP MySQL Database Design Multi-Provider Infrastructure (AWS, Softlayer, DigitalOcean) Stripe & PayPal Integration Credit-Based Pricing & Escrow REST API Design Lead Verification Workflows Migrations System Design DevOps Procedures & Documentation WordPress + Custom Themes Redmine Project Management JobberBase Integration Chinese Market Knowledge (Weibo, CIQ) Lean Startup Methodology Accelerator Participation (Chinaccelerator) Multi-Language Support Git / Bitbucket Workflows

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