Japonics / COMMUNITY PLATFORM

NAKAMA

A community platform for fandoms, clubs, and groups, connecting profiles, events, memories, activities, and private relationships.

System design Development Security
NAKAMA preview
Client: Japonics Year: 2026

Trust architecture: KYC and encryption

Where the project started

Nakama designs trust as architecture, not a terms-of-service promise: mandatory identity verification, a paid-only onboarding with no free tier, and end-to-end encrypted chat remove whole classes of spam, bots, and fake profiles before they ever reach discovery.

Starting point

Communities often fall back to chaotic chats, feeds, and spreadsheets, losing the history of relationships and events.

Direction taken

Nakama is built around private contexts: groups, events, side quests, media, relationships, and permissions, with mandatory KYC and end-to-end encrypted chat (the server only ever sees ciphertext) as the trust foundation, not an add-on. The architecture separates public profiles, private memories, and organizer operations.

Business / Product

Problems and solutions

Each tile connects a real product tension with the decision that clarified the domain, UX, or operations.

Problem

Communities often fall back to chaotic chats, feeds, and spreadsheets, losing the history of relationships and events.

Solution

Design a mature community model that does not clone a public social network.

Outcome Clear alternative to chaotic chats
Problem

The scope could easily become a feature list without one product, data, and ownership model.

Solution

Nakama is built around private contexts: groups, events, side quests, media, relationships, and permissions, with mandatory KYC and end-to-end encrypted chat (the server only ever sees ciphertext) as the trust foundation, not an add-on. The architecture separates public profiles, private memories, and organizer operations.

Outcome Roles and privacy as product foundations
Problem

The project needed decisions that would stay readable after the first version: for users, the team, and further delivery.

Solution

Roles and privacy as product foundations. Mandatory KYC and paid onboarding with no free tier.

Outcome Model ready for community-led growth

Roles and competencies

The competencies this build required

Competencies are shown as ownership roles: CTO, Tech Lead, engineering, DevOps, cloud, security, and AI where they were part of the work.

01

Fractional CTO

Connecting the product thesis, domain risk, and priorities so technology supports business decisions instead of becoming a separate workstream.

Open competency
Scope
  • Product category and positioning
  • Scope priorities and risk
  • Decisions ready for founder or CTO review
Applied experience
  • Product thesis translated into technical priorities.
  • Risks framed in a language stakeholders can review.
02

Tech Lead

Shaping responsibility boundaries, domain modeling, and architecture decisions so the project can grow without drifting into an accidental monolith.

Open competency
Scope
  • Bounded contexts and ownership
  • Readable technical decisions
  • Roadmap without implementation chaos
Applied experience
  • Domain boundaries and decisions that remain reviewable after MVP.
  • Ownership model readable for later delivery stages.
03

Software Engineer

Turning the domain into screens, APIs, flows, and maintainable implementation with focus on clarity and post-MVP evolution.

Open competency
Scope
  • Backend and application contracts
  • UX surfaces ready for iteration
  • Code and maintenance model
Applied experience
  • Implementation tied to the real product workflow.
  • Contracts and code prepared for post-launch iteration.
04

DevOps Engineer

Designing delivery, observability, and operations so release, diagnostics, and recovery are part of the product.

Open competency
Scope
  • CI/CD and release readiness
  • Observability and production signals
  • Operations without manual rituals
Applied experience
  • Release, diagnostics, and recovery designed as product capabilities.
  • Production signals ready for maintenance without guessing.
05

Cloud Engineer

Choosing cloud, data, and integration foundations so scale, cost, and reliability are not added after the fact.

Open competency
Scope
  • Google Cloud and managed services
  • Data, events, and storage
  • Cost and operational control
Applied experience
  • Cloud choices tied to cost, scale, and data responsibility.
  • Integrations and storage treated as foundations, not add-ons.
06

Security Engineer

Trust is built into the product model, not bolted on afterward: mandatory KYC as an anti-spam barrier, end-to-end encryption, and GDPR-aligned data minimization.

Open competency
Scope
  • Mandatory KYC as an anti-spam and anti-bot barrier
  • E2E chat: the server stores ciphertext only
  • GDPR-aligned data minimization and auditable moderation actions
Applied experience
  • Privacy, roles, and auditability built into the product model.
  • Security visible in domain decisions, not only around the UI.

Stack by competency

Tech stack

The stack is grouped by competency so it shows both technology and responsibility: software, leadership, DevOps, cloud, security, and AI.

Software Engineer
  • .NET / ASP.NET Core
  • TypeScript
  • .NET MAUI mobile client
  • Angular web client
  • Domain logic engines
  • PostgreSQL
Tech Lead
  • Realtime domain boundaries
  • Identity & trust domain model
DevOps Engineer
  • OpenTelemetry
  • Cloud Logging
Cloud Engineer
  • Object storage
Security Engineer
  • Privacy architecture
  • Data classification & encryption
  • KYC & identity verification
  • End-to-end encryption
  • Data minimization
.NET / ASP.NET Core .NET MAUI mobile client Domain logic engines Realtime domain boundaries OpenTelemetry Object storage Data classification & encryption End-to-end encryption .NET 8 .NET MAUI Mandatory KYC .NET / ASP.NET Core .NET MAUI mobile client Domain logic engines Realtime domain boundaries OpenTelemetry Object storage Data classification & encryption End-to-end encryption .NET 8 .NET MAUI Mandatory KYC .NET / ASP.NET Core .NET MAUI mobile client Domain logic engines Realtime domain boundaries OpenTelemetry Object storage Data classification & encryption End-to-end encryption .NET 8 .NET MAUI Mandatory KYC
TypeScript Angular web client PostgreSQL Identity & trust domain model Cloud Logging Privacy architecture KYC & identity verification Data minimization Realtime messaging Angular End-to-end encryption (ciphertext-only) TypeScript Angular web client PostgreSQL Identity & trust domain model Cloud Logging Privacy architecture KYC & identity verification Data minimization Realtime messaging Angular End-to-end encryption (ciphertext-only) TypeScript Angular web client PostgreSQL Identity & trust domain model Cloud Logging Privacy architecture KYC & identity verification Data minimization Realtime messaging Angular End-to-end encryption (ciphertext-only)