Social Opinion with Jamie Maguire
Have you ever wondered what it takes to build a production SaaS platform entirely in your own time?
In this Tales from the Real World episode, Chris is joined by Jamie Maguire — Developer, Microsoft MVP (AI), and Pluralsight Author — who shares the story behind Social Opinion, a Twitter analytics and productivity platform built with .NET and Azure.
Jamie covers the full journey from first principles to production SaaS:
- Origins: A custom text analytics API built with Bayesian theorem and part-of-speech tagging, developed during a three-year master’s degree alongside full-time consulting work
- Pivot to Azure Cognitive Services: Replacing the custom ML pipeline with Azure Cognitive Services Text Analytics — freeing up time to focus on product features rather than algorithm accuracy
- Feature evolution: Social listening (keyword and sentiment tracking), content scheduling, audience insights, and engagement heat maps
- Platform: .NET (C#) backend, Azure Cognitive Services, Microsoft Bot Framework integration
- Career advice: Start with something you’re genuinely passionate about; validate demand before writing a single line of code; you don’t need a unique idea — ship early and iterate
A frank and practical episode for anyone considering building their own side project or SaaS product.
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