2025: The hardest year of my life - Haroon Azizi

Salaam,

This is a very special one for me, I finally get to talk about 2025. This year was very hard for me, it was literally the hardest year of my life. I started the year with a very simple goal and I didn't imagine in my wildest dreams how would it end up.

My last year's goal was simple. I'll code everyday of 2025 continously, no matter what. I wasn't able to keep it for the entire year, but I managed to do it for 127 days continously, and I finished the year with 300+ days of committing and pushing my codes to GitHub. This commitment changed my life - literally. In 2025, I created my own development agency named code.af, I finally launched Hadaf - an educational platform made from scratch by my team and I, I managed to meet some very cool people and I also started to get some recognition for the work I'm doing.

Let me write about the story of code.af, because it's very interesting: I was into buying domains and I wanted to buy some cool ones. I noticed that a lot of cool .com domains have already been purchesed and I don't have a chance in that market, so I decided to buy .af domains. I was searching and researching and I was thinking IMDB.af, Amazon.af, etc. Then I thought of programming.af (this still isn't taken, btw), that was very nice but it was kinda long so I thought and thought and thought and code.af came to my mind. I was so exited for it, I went to the registrar's website and when I saw it was available I immedietly purchased it. To be honest, in the beginning, I actually wanted to sell it back for profit. I had a lot of people interested in buying it for 100-200x of the initial price of it, but I don't know, something didn't let me sell it. I was actually looking to sell it for a higher price. So no one bought it for higher price and I just didn't sell it. Then people started to actually message me on LinkedIn and they were asking me to work on their projects. They've seen my work so they trusted my taste and also the way I work. I started getting messages and thought of making code.af a thing. A development agency. So I started working on it, its branding, what we'll do, what will be our differentiator in this saturated market and how will we operate. The domain that once used to be for sale is now one of my businesses.

The people who are close to me are jokingly calling me Hadaf, Mr. Hadaf, Haji Hadaf, etc. The reason is that no matter where I go, I find a way to actually talk about the product I've developed. It's just so amazing and people are very impressed by the product. As of my understanding, there are less than 50 (active) mobile apps in Afghanistan market right now and Hadaf is one of them. The website we have is "amazing" according to the people who've actually used it and the technlogoy is something "bi jora" as one of my friends put it. I had the idea of Hadaf for a very long time, I've worked on its business model and the courses we'll have and the mission and all for years, I just wasn't ready for the commitment, or maybe it was because of the lack of budget (trust me, it's very costly to develop and run an app like Hadaf), or maybe it was becuase I was scared of failure. Whatever it was, it was holding me back. But 2025 and code.af changed my perspective. It isn't that hard to just start, the difficult part is staying commited and motivated and not giving up and pushing one step forward. Fun fact: Hadaf used to be Badam, but then I thought of the domain had.af and it wasn't taken, I loved it so much that I renamed the entire app to Hadaf. Even on the SRS documents that I shared with my team of developers I have used the name Badam instead of Hadaf.

Anyways, the journey was very difficult and it's just the start. From months of waiting for Apple to approve my developer account to months of waiting to form a UK LTD, to days of mental breakdown and to sleepless nights. It was a very difficult year. I got to know a lot about people, about how things work, how businesses operate, the dirty tricks development agencies use to get projects (we haven't used any of that and we never will), the fact that most people doesn't give a damn about what you've built, and the fact that even the closest people to you aren't as supportive as you thought they would be. It is very hard to run a platform like Hadaf without any external financial support, it's very difficult to maintain the server costs, the marketing costs, teacher's salaries, and also staff salary. It's way difficult than you may think. I knew it would be difficult, but this difficult? I never thought it would be this difficult.

Anyways, it's just the start, and I really think 2026 will either be the worst year of my life or the best one - I don't think there will be anything in between. I haven't had a real vacation in months, I have been working 118 of the past 120 days, and I wake up and go to sleep thinking about Hadaf and code.af. I have some big plans for Hadaf but in order to make them happen, I need more students than what I have now. Right now I'm planning on launching three new courses (this is actually the first time I'm making it public): Exit Exam preparation course, Turkish language course and Uzbik language course. I'm also in the process of creating a plan for THE BIGGEST referral program in Afghanistan and I'm also in talks with some organizations (I can't disclose their names yet) and I'm trying to convince them to use Hadaf instead of Google Meet or Zoom for their online classes. We've had some progress but let's see what happens.

Yes. It was more like Hadaf in review but 2025 in review, but I really ejoyed reflecting on the journey while writing it and I really hope you enjoyed reading it.

If you needed to contact me please don't hesitate to email me at ha@code.af or DM me on socials.

Please share Hadaf (had.af) with anyone in your network or your family so we could bring an impactful change in Afghanistan's technology and education market.

Thanks, Haroon Azizi 30 - Dec - 2025 (23:43)