Xams

Co-Founder and Developer at Xams

Daniel Ensminger co-founded Xams (ExamManager), building exam timing and school exam-management software from classroom timer through SaaS dashboard.

Self Employed

2022 — 2025

Remote, United Kingdom

xams.app

Xams

I co-founded Xams with a close friend after we sat our iGCSE exams and kept hitting the same friction in how schools timed and coordinated papers. What started as ExamTimer grew into ExamManager — exam scheduling, classroom timing, and staff workflows for schools.

The original xams.app domain is no longer active. Auth and backend services are offline; the frontends stay up as a portfolio showcase across three Vercel deployments:

Product Evolution

We iterated the product several times — from a focused classroom timer into a fuller exam manager, then a SaaS-shaped rewrite — before parking the stack as public demos.

  1. 01

    ExamTimer

    Classroom exam timer

  2. 02

    ExamManager

    Scheduling · dashboards

  3. 03

    SaaS rewrite

    Billing · accounts

  4. 04

    Showcase

    Portfolio demos on Vercel

Impact & Responsibilities

  • Exam Timing: Built the classroom timer flow for reading time, writing time, extra time, and clear status feedback during live exams.
  • Scheduling & Dashboards: Designed exam lists, create-exam flows, and student-facing views so schools could see what was running and what was next.
  • School Operations: Worked on planning, presets, and collaboration features aimed at staff coordinating papers across subjects and rooms.
  • Product Iteration: Shipped multiple generations of the product (Vue timer, Next.js App Router manager, and a later SaaS rewrite) as the scope grew.
  • Data Model: Mapped the domain into a relational schema covering exams, timing options, and school-oriented entities.

Platform Demo

An early look at ExamTimer in a live classroom-style run:

ExamTimer demo

Interface & Features

Product UI from the ExamManager / Online Exam Timer generations — dashboard, creation flow, student view, and pricing:

ExamManager dashboard
Exam list & start controls
Create exam modal
Student view
New exam form
Subscription tiers

ExamManager dashboard

01 / 06

What I Learned

Building exam software for real school workflows taught me to keep timing states obvious under pressure, iterate the product shape as requirements grew, and leave a readable public trail when a product is retired — demos and screenshots that still show the craft without pretending the backends are live.

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