016 min
Building LLM Gateway: from zero to $470K in 12 months
In May 2025, Luca Steeb and I started building LLM Gateway, an open-source API gateway for Large Language Models. Twelve months later, it has processed over $470K in verified…
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021 min
Attending Next Conf 2023
Next Conf is an annual conference that is organized by the team at Vercel during which they showcase what’s new in Next.js, what has been done so far and what’s coming in the…
036 min
2021 year in review
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash 2021 was an immersive year for me, After quitting my full time job at 4D in early November 2020, I was actually in a tough spot, I had only a…
043 min
How to make an NFT
You can collect this article as an NFT Here As there is a new trend these days and as I’ve been working on this area recently, I thought of writing this article to explain what an…
055 min
2020 year in review
I haven't published any article during this year which is unfortunate as it's been an overwhelming one for me but not exactly due to the pandemic, it was mainly due to the amount…
062 min
2019 year in review
I managed to achieve in 2019 much more of what I've done in 2018, here's an overview of what I have learned, created & some random facts. Learning Dev - React hooks - React native…
074 min
Get paid while you're learning, working at a startup
Life update If you haven't read my previous article about the visas rejections, I'd recommend you to do so as I mentioned there that I switched my job and the reasons behind such…
083 min
15 Days working from Bali
I'm writing this article in my room back home, thankfully I arrived safely and I had to take some rest by calling on my grandma in a not so far village from my small city. Before…
092 min
Handling SEO in React apps
I have landed successfully in Bali, rented a scooter and been enjoying my ride from my place to Dojo Bali where I'm currently writing this article. SEO definition Search engine…
101 min
How To add dark mode easily with a custom React hook
2024's Update: just use Next themes In this quick article, I will be implementing dark mode to a quick React app with a custom React hook, Before we start, let's see how is this…
112 min
2018 year review
2018 was for me the most productive year so far, so I've decided to write an article at the beginning of each new year highlighting few achievements to improve over the upcoming…
123 min
One year working remotely
Remember the last time I shared with you my story when I declined the job offer as a front end developer then won the first prize at a hackathon which was hilarious because I got…
134 min
From failure to launch - Hajj Hackathon
While travelling to Rabat in order to visit the Moroccan office of Obytes (the company I work for), I got invited to participate in Hajj hackathon which was looking for people who…
142 min
The tech tools I use
A list of tools I use for: - Personal side projects - Full time job - Working with clients Design tools - Midjourney for logo, icon and illustration design - Figma for designing…
151 min
Why I created Unnamed
I hate when I use a known css framework like Skeleton or Bulma… and specially frameworks like Bootstrap or Foundation… Because of many reasons but here’s the main reason: “since…
162 min
First time getting first prize at a hackathon
As I always do, to arrive at time I stay awake the whole night, so I spent that night coding & designing like most of my days. So after I declined the job offer, I was invited…
173 min
Getting my first job offer without a degree at a startup
It all started on facebook, I was reading Tech crunch news until a notification popped up, my friend Med Bouasria tagged me on a job announcement on a facebook post of Hidden…
182 min
HPS Hackathon
After winning the second prize at the Lydec Hackathon organized by Screendy. I got invited to join the student partner program of Screendy — thanks to Mehdi Alaoui (the Founder &…
193 min
How I learned Design and Dev in a year and half
I started Learning Design 1st - I learned Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop --Then Adobe XD later on-- easily since I was playing with Adobe After Effects when I was a little boy. - I…
203 min
About me so far...
The story of my nickname "Smakosh" I’m Ismail Ghallou also known as Smakosh, a nickname which was given to me since I was 8 years old by one of my childhood friends' father. Many…