TIKITA TOLLEY

The Journey

Physics Dropout

As a kid, I was pretty fascinated with space. This lead eventually to physics. I had planned out my life path to be an astronaut or at least try.

Black Hole Skydive Skydive Plane Singularity Orbital Dark Matter Anti-Gravity Space-Time Hawking Patch Telescope Space Wall EM Diagrams Hand Notes Physics Site Experiment Moon 2020 Jupiter & Moon Crescent 2012

But when I excitedly arrived at university to do my life’s dream I realised I was so burnt out I would never achieve it. So I dropped out to take a gap year and upskill.

The Gap Year and a Half

One module at uni I failed is programming. So at the beginning of my gap year I started to learn to code. My aim being by the end of the year to be able to build the connect 4 game from the programming module. I got a job at McDonald’s and at the same time met Jack at salsa dancing! He became my mentor in code and completely accelerated my learning.

The 1st salsa class and where I met Jack

I decided to tutor maths and physics to boost my personal statement for when I returned to uni, but ended up loving the job - and by the end had 11 students. Jack and I then decided we would take this gap year opportunity to see a bit of the world. I left McDonald’s and tutoring and we headed off to Thailand.

Travelling Asia

We ended up doing a trip for 5 and a half months from Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. I documented it all on YouTube. Everyday was filled with coding small projects, achieving the connect 4 build, my 1st attempt at a full stack app, and physics study preparing for my time at Manchester uni.

The 2nd Uni Experience

When I arrived, I was finally on the ball, winning a scholarship for being top 10 in the year. But over time I became disillusioned. I realised 1: uni isn’t what is used to be, and 2: my dreams had changed. So I dropped out a 2nd time to pursue the adventure of building apps in SE Asia instead.

Founding Daeda Tech

My husband and I co-founded Daeda Tech, building apps for HubSpot users, in 2024. We’ve shipped a mix of apps and chrome extensions. Our flagship app is Daeda Essentials, and my main builds are Clean Dial, Auto Associations Pro, and Dynamic Dropdowns, with our biggest release coming up now with the Daeda MCP Pro server.

Building

My timeline shows all my projects from the last 4 years but it’s in the time since founding Daeda that I’ve learnt the main chunk: how to build a full-stack mvp with payment system, marketing, brand design, customer support and feature recs. My 1st build was in the Shopify space: Daeda Wishlist, then I did some store extensions like Recently Viewed and helped merchants on the forums. I eventually moved to full focus on HubSpot and built a couple free side project chrome extensions like Cursor Aura and Convert Time.

Exploring Hardware

My first hardware project was a buggy robot but the development board broke before I could finish it. My current focus is getting light to dance to sound and sketching out plans for an esp32 custom wrist watch. I’ve been documenting the Sound Reactive LED Build Log build on this site, and talking about all apps and hardware builds on my substack: Code & Solder

Learning and writing about the world

2025 I really get into philosophy and have been blogging my exploration of existential questions on Curious Descent and am now writing about Systems Philosophy on this site.

Follow Along

• Code & Solder - App/Hardware build logs
• Curious Descent - Philosophy & big questions
• YouTube - Project videos