Inspiration
SnapLink was born from a gap in the Kenyan creative economy. While cities like Nairobi and Mombasa teem with talent, clients often face "price guesswork" and "vibe mismatches." We wanted to move beyond basic directories to create a smart bridge that empowers local creators and offers clients a premium, friction-free booking experience.
What it does
SnapLink is an AI-powered marketplace that connects clients with verified photographers, videographers, and editors. Instead of manual filtering, an AI Event Concierge converts casual descriptions into structured data to instantly match users with professionals based on style, location, and budget.
How we built it
We leveraged a high-performance, modern tech stack:
Frontend: Next.js (App Router) for SEO and speed.
Styling: Tailwind CSS for a sleek, startup-grade UI.
AI Engine: Gemini 3 Flash for natural language intent extraction.
Deployment: Vercel, utilizing serverless functions to secure sensitive API logic.
Challenges we ran into
Our biggest hurdle was managing API rate limits (429 errors) during heavy AI testing. We solved this by implementing an Exponential Backoff algorithm to stabilize requests. We also navigated Next.js build errors by wrapping search-dependent components in boundaries to handle client-side data fetching during deployment.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We successfully transformed a standard CRUD application into a Smart Marketplace. We are especially proud of our Intent Extraction Engine, which turns a sentence like "I need a moody shoot in Westlands under 5k" into a precise database query in milliseconds.
What we learned
Building SnapLink shifted our focus from "just coding" to Product Engineering. We mastered AI orchestration—using LLMs as a functional logic layer—and deepened our understanding of the relationship between RPM (Requests Per Minute) and system stability.
What's next for Snaplink
In the Kenyan market, trust is everything. Integrating a local payment gateway makes this a "real" business.
M-Pesa Integration: Use the Daraja API to allow clients to pay deposits directly through the app.
Escrow System: Hold the payment and only release it to the photographer once the client confirms they’ve received the photos.
Verified Badge: A manual or AI-driven verification process for photographers (ID check + portfolio review).
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