How I Built Reimgr.com: Two Weeks, Zero Sleep, and One Obsession

The Itch That Wouldn’t Go Away

It started with something simple. I was revamping my resume and building a blog site at austinosuide.com, hunting for tools to convert and optimise images. Format conversion here, resizing there, compression everywhere. I found myself bouncing between multiple tools, each with its own quirks, subscriptions, and learning curves. I muttered something unprintable, closed my laptop, and stepped away from my desk.

But the problem wouldn’t leave me alone. What if there was one platform that did everything? What if it was fast, intuitive, fun to use and respected user privacy? What if the security was so robust that enterprise clients wouldn’t even flinch?

By that evening, I knew I had to build it.

The Two-Week Sprint

What followed was, frankly, a bit mad. I had the time and I used it. The next fourteen days became a blur of code, coffee, and the occasional existential crisis at 3am when something refused to work.

My 0530hr indoor cycling sessions were the first casualty. Winter training on the turbo trainer keeps me sane, but suddenly I was crawling into bed at 2am and staring at the ceiling thinking about Lambda functions. The bike gathered dust while the code piled up. Some obsessions simply refuse to wait.

Building a platform like Reimgr.com isn’t just about making images convert from PNG to JPG. That’s the easy part. The challenge is orchestrating dozens of moving pieces: file uploads, AI processing pipelines, user authentication, payment handling, and the ever-present concern of keeping everything secure. One weak link and the whole thing falls apart.

I chose to build entirely serverless on AWS. No servers to maintain, no capacity planning nightmares, and the ability to scale from zero to millions of requests without breaking a sweat. The architecture is event driven, meaning when you upload an image, it triggers a cascade of intelligent processes that handle everything from format conversion to AI powered background removal.

The frontend runs on Next.js 15 with React 19, giving users a fast and responsive experience whether they’re on a laptop in London or a phone in Lagos. Everything is served through a global content delivery network, so the site feels snappy regardless of where you are in the world.

Making AI Actually Useful

Here’s the thing about AI in 2025: there’s no shortage of tools promising to revolutionise your workflow. The challenge is cutting through the noise to find capabilities that solve real problems without adding complexity. I wanted Reimgr.com to be that kind of tool.

When you upload an image, our Smart Convert feature analyses it using AI and recommends the optimal format and settings. Not everyone knows whether their photograph should be a WebP or a high-quality JPEG, or what compression level preserves quality while slashing file size. The AI handles that decision making for you.

Background removal uses a purpose-built model that handles complex edges like hair and transparent objects with remarkable precision. AI upscaling can double or quadruple your image resolution while preserving detail. Object removal lets you erase unwanted elements from your images seamlessly.

But the feature I’m most proud of is AI Edit. Upload any image, describe what you want changed in plain language, and watch the AI transform it. Want to change the sky from overcast to sunset? Just say so. Need to alter the colour of a product? Type the instruction. It’s the kind of capability that would have seemed like science fiction five years ago, and now it’s running on a platform I built in a fortnight.

The credit-based pricing model was a deliberate choice. Rather than locking people into monthly subscriptions they might not fully use, you simply buy credits and spend them as needed. They never expire. A basic conversion costs one credit. Background removal costs three. You stay in control.

Financial Grade Security: Not Just Marketing

When I say financial grade security, I mean it. This isn’t a checkbox exercise or a paragraph of reassuring words. It’s baked into every layer of the platform.

All traffic passes through a Web Application Firewall that inspects requests and blocks malicious patterns in real time. Rate limiting prevents abuse. Every piece of data is encrypted, both when it’s moving across the network and when it’s sitting in storage. User authentication runs through AWS Cognito, the same infrastructure trusted by banks and healthcare providers.

I implemented the principle of least privilege throughout. Every component in the system has only the minimum permissions it needs to do its job. If something were ever compromised, the blast radius would be contained. There’s no single key that unlocks everything.

Your images are processed and delivered. We don’t train AI models on your uploads. We don’t sell your data. We don’t keep images longer than necessary for processing. The platform exists to serve you, not to monetise your content through the back door.

What I Learned Building This

Those two weeks taught me things no tutorial ever could.

Firstly, constraints breed creativity. I didn’t have a team of engineers. I had my own stubbornness. That forced me to make ruthless decisions about what mattered and what could wait. The result is a focused product that does exactly what it says.

Secondly, infrastructure as code is non-negotiable. Every piece of the Reimgr.com infrastructure is defined in Terraform configuration files. I can tear down and rebuild the entire platform in minutes. This isn’t just good engineering practice; it’s essential for security auditing and disaster recovery.

Thirdly, and I cannot stress this enough, sacrificing your routines catches up with you. Those missed morning sessions on the bike left me sluggish and making mistakes that cost hours to fix. If I build the next feature set, I’m building it sustainably. The turbo trainer stays in the schedule.

What’s Next

Reimgr.com is live and ready for you to try. The core features are solid: format conversion, compression, resizing, background removal, object removal, AI upscaling, smart format recommendations, and AI Edit for text-based image transformation. All wrapped in a clean interface that doesn’t require a manual to understand.

On the roadmap is real time progress updates for large batch jobs and expanded batch processing for enterprise users. The foundation I’ve built makes these features possible without architectural gymnastics.

But right now, today, you can head to the site and transform your first images. For $4.99 you get 20 credits, enough to try every feature and see what the platform can do. A basic conversion costs just one credit, so that starter bundle goes a long way. If it saves you time, larger bundles bring the per credit cost down further.

I built Reimgr.com because I needed it. I’m launching it because I suspect you might need it too.
Enjoy!!