Why this problem?
Managing tax residency and immigration is high-risk, but existing tools are inaccurate, hard to use, and insecure
Competitive analysis and interviews with frequent travelers uncovered the following core pain points.
Manual Effort - Tracking each day by hand via existing solutions (spreadsheets, calendars, apps, etc.) is tedious.
Costly Errors - Potential double taxation and visa overstays are significant, high-stakes risks that can cause considerable stress.
What is Sarmiza?
Sarmiza is an all-in-one travel compliance tool
Offline Tracker
The offline tracker drives Sarmiza's functionality, keeping location and day counts updated to clarify residency status and ease tracking anxiety.
Watchlist & Widgets
I worked with legal experts to build the watchlist, distilling complex requirements—like Canadian Citizenship and Schengen—into clear flows and widgets.
Show Summary
A summary component provides a day count breakdown by location for any time period.
Timeline
Users can effortlessly scan photos or import travel history into a well-organized timeline.
Onboarding
A clear and concise onboarding flow was crucial for user retention and conversion.
How did we approach this?
Defining priorities and staying focused was key to shipping a cohesive product fast. Here's a breakdown.
Clear objectives eliminate ambiguity
We balanced customer needs and business goals by defining our ideal user, solving core pain points, and creating a roadmap to drive revenue and product-market fit.
Prioritize around user needs
I created a prioritization framework to focus on high-demand, high-impact, low-effort features, like residency tracking, watchlists, and location precision.
Great collaboration through structure
Staying aligned as an async remote team was tough. We relied on clear, consistent memos and collaborative docs to track progress and maintain context.
Ship fast & iterate
Real feedback comes from the market. Overthinking kills momentum and delays necessary iteration.
Branding & Marketing
Sarmiza's brand and design system ensure cohesion across platforms
Landing Page
I designed and developed Sarmiza's landing page and visual identity.
Tools & Content
The SEO-optimized site features interactive tools and educational content, driving consistent organic growth.
App Store
The app's design system ensures a consistent look and feel across all platforms.
Where did challenges arise?
Overcoming onboarding and privacy challenges to build user trust
Timeline Creation Bottleneck
Timeline creation was a major bottleneck, causing 68% of users to drop out during onboarding.
Our solution was an on-device “Photos-to-Timeline” feature that scans date and location metadata to automatically generate a travel log.
// This code is simplified for the sake of this article
async function getMedia(fromTime, toTime) {
setShowLoadingScreen(true);
const photos = await CameraRoll.getPhotos({
first: 50000,
assetType: "All",
fromTime,
toTime,
include: ["location"],
});
// Update progress indicator and prepare for next stage
}
for (const photo of photos.edges) {
if (photo.node.location.altitude < 5000) {
const locCode = await convert_coords(photo.node.location);
rawTimeline.push(locCode); // Group entries for display
}
}Impact
Cut onboarding from 15 minutes to 2, raised trial conversions from 9% to 15%, and preserved on-device privacy—earning user praise for a “magical” experience.
Offline Implementation & Privacy
We adopted an offline-first architecture with local encryption, no mandatory login, and optional iCloud sync—ensuring data stays on the device and building user trust.
By combining MMKV and WatermelonDB for fast, encrypted key-value storage and complex queries, we handle data locally while preserving battery life via minimal background updates:
// This code is simplified for the sake of this article
BackgroundGeolocation.ready({
distanceFilter: 100,
stopOnTerminate: false,
startOnBoot: true,
preventSuspend: false,
maxDaysToPersist: 7,
persistMode: BackgroundGeolocation.PERSIST_MODE_ALL
});Impact
Delivered a fully offline experience with minimal battery drain, zero external servers, and optional iCloud sync—reinforcing privacy in a high-stakes domain.
Reflections
Working in a small, tight-knit team let me shape every aspect of Sarmiza—from product strategy and feature ideation to deep collaboration with our development team.