Abdiel Hernández
About me
Hi, I'm Abdiel.
Laravel developer and founder of API Market.
I was born in Angostura, Sinaloa. I trained as an industrial engineer and my first career was in human resources, so I came to code from the other side: the side that puts up with complicated systems.
Laravel was my way into programming, and since then I build useful, simple, practical applications. I live in Tijuana today, and every project I take on solves something I lived through as a user.
What I do
I turn ideas into software people actually use.
Software people use every day, not pretty demos. These are the things I can help you with.
APIs and microservices
Services other teams can consume without reading a manual: fast responses, clear errors and documentation that exists.
Web applications
Dashboards and platforms built with Laravel and Livewire, designed so the person using them daily stops losing time.
Process automation
Paperwork and repetitive tasks turned into flows that run on their own, with no spreadsheet in the middle.
Data integrations
Connecting to third-party systems and government databases: validate, normalise and return information you can trust.
Open source packages
Code pulled out of real projects and published as a package so nobody writes the same thing twice.
Desktop apps
Applications packaged for Mac and Windows when the browser is no longer enough, using the same stack as always.
How I work
The problem first, the code after.
I don't have a methodology with a name. I have four rules I never break.
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I listen to the problem, not the request
What gets asked for is rarely what is needed. I ask what is done by hand today, how many people touch it and how long it takes.
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I look for the shortest path to something usable
I would rather hand you a piece that already works this week than a complete plan for three months from now.
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I measure what nobody measured before
If a procedure took two days, I want the number before and after. Without it there is no improvement, only opinions.
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I leave it running without me
Real documentation, errors that make sense and code someone else can read. If you have to call me for everything, I did not finish the job.
Projects
Things I have built.
Each one started as a problem of my own. All of them are still online.
API Market
Connect to Mexican government databases (INE, CURP, SAT, SEP, IMSS and INFONAVIT) and check your users’ records through the fastest API in the country.
Livewirestack
Interface components ready to drop into any TALL stack application: Tailwind, Alpine.js, Livewire and Laravel.
MailApi
A Laravel package that exposes email sending as a microservice and serves several clients without repeating configuration in every project.
My story
It all started with a repaired phone.
I grew up in Batury, a community of about a thousand people in Angostura, Sinaloa. Technology always arrived late, and instead of frustrating me that made me curious: I wanted to understand how the things I could barely see actually worked.
In 2010 my mother bought a second-hand phone so we could stay in touch when I left to study. It arrived broken. With her experience soldering electronic components, she replaced the screen flex and brought it back to life. That LG Cookie was my first phone and my first lesson: almost anything can be fixed if you understand how it is built inside.
Years later, handling more than 300 hires a week in human resources, I found the same pattern: processes nobody had ever opened up to look inside. I learned to program at night, from forums and documentation, and ended up building API Market to solve exactly that.
Build useful, simple, practical tools that solve real problems.
Lessons
Human resources taught me how to code.
Before writing code I spent years on the other side of the system, putting up with it. That taught me more than any course.
Processes break at the edges
Systems do not fail in the normal case: they fail on the badly scanned document, the surname with two spaces, the incomplete file. That is where I start designing.
Nobody reads manuals
If a tool needs an hour of training, it is badly built. Validating hundreds of hires a week leaves no time to learn interfaces.
People's time is the real cost
It does not matter how elegant the solution is if the team ends up copying data into a spreadsheet to get their work done.
SaaS and entrepreneurship
I built my own SaaS before building yours.
API Market grew out of paperwork that stole hours from my week. This is what I learned getting it off the ground.
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Start from a problem you have suffered
Validating an idea is cheap when you are the first user. I already knew how many hours validating documents by hand cost, because I had paid them.
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The first version has to fit in weeks
A SaaS does not launch complete: it launches with the flow people are already willing to pay for, and grows with what the first users ask for.
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Architecture is decided once
Multi-tenancy, billing and permissions are defined at the start. Changing those three with customers inside is the most expensive rewrite there is.
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Operations are part of the product
A SaaS nobody can deploy, monitor or back up is not finished. Docker, queues and logs are not luxuries: they are what lets you sleep.
Tools
The stack behind the work.
Nothing exotic: mature tools that let me ship fast and sleep well.
- Laravel
- PHP 8.4
- MySQL
- SQLite
- Redis
- Livewire
- Alpine.js
- Vue 3
- Tailwind CSS
- Blade
- PHPStorm
- Laravel Herd
- Docker
- Git
- AWS Lambda
- Bref
- Serverless
- Cloudflare
Away from the code
There is life away from the keyboard too.
I live in Tijuana with my family, and much of what I learn I learn once they are asleep. I never studied programming: I pieced it together from forums, documentation and projects nobody cared about but me.
I follow artificial intelligence and machine learning closely, not because of the hype but because of the same question as always: which repetitive work will stop needing someone to do it by hand.
- Reading about language models applied to paperwork
- Trying NativePHP to take Laravel to the desktop
- Writing the next article
Articles
I write what I learn.
Notes on Laravel, APIs and the decisions I make while building.
Writer API - Una formula open source
Todo comenzó con una necesidad específica: encontrar una manera eficiente y automatizada de generar documentos personalizados en masa, una pieza clave en el lanzamiento de uno de los productos de apimarket.
Read articleUn viaje autodidacta: cómo la curiosidad y la tecnología transformaron mi vida
Desde un pequeño rancho en Sinaloa hasta fundar API Market, mi historia es un testimonio de cómo la curiosidad y el aprendizaje autodidacta pueden abrir puertas inesperadas. Descubre cómo las experiencias personales y profesionales me llevaron a simplificar procesos y construir soluciones que transforman vidas.
Read articleFrequently asked
What people ask me before we start.
Straight answers to what usually lands in my inbox before a project begins.
What does a Laravel developer actually do?
Laravel is a PHP framework for building web applications. A Laravel developer designs the database, the business logic, the screens and the APIs of a system, and keeps it running in production. In my case that usually means a SaaS platform, an internal dashboard or an API other teams consume.
Do you work with companies outside Tijuana?
Yes. I live in Tijuana, Baja California, on Pacific time, and I work remotely: video calls, a shared repository and delivery in phases. Sharing a time zone with California makes coordinating with teams on the border and in the United States straightforward.
How much does it cost to build a SaaS?
It depends on scope, which is why I do not quote a price before understanding the problem. What I always do is split it into phases with a first usable release in weeks, not months: you learn the real cost of the next phase with something working in your hands, instead of signing a large budget blind.
Why Laravel and not another framework?
Because it favours delivery speed without giving up structure: authentication, queues, migrations and testing come solved, and the ecosystem is mature. For business software, where the value sits in the process rather than in technical novelty, that means less custom code to maintain.
Do you use Docker, and how do you deploy?
Yes, I use Docker on every project: the container carries the libraries, the PHP version and the system tools, so what runs on my machine is what runs in production. Deployment depends on the project, from traditional servers to serverless on AWS Lambda with Bref.
What is a multi-tenant SaaS?
It is an application where several companies use the same installation but each one only sees its own data. You decide on day one whether every customer gets its own database or they share one with logical separation, because changing it later is expensive. It is the architecture behind most subscription platforms.
Can you take over a project that already exists?
Yes, and I start by reading it before touching it: I review the code, the dependencies and how it is deployed, then tell you what I found and what I would fix first. I would rather say honestly whether it is worth continuing or rewriting a part, even when that answer is uncomfortable.
How did you learn to program?
On my own, at night, after work. I trained as an industrial engineer and my first career was human resources; I learned from forums and documentation, using my own projects as a testing ground, until I built API Market to solve a problem I had myself.
Be part of the story.
I let you know when I publish something new about Laravel, APIs and whatever I am learning along the way.
Available for projects
Let's build something simple.
Tell me about the problem eating your time. I will take care of the boring part.