Building a CRM from Scratch as a Solo Developer: Lessons Learned Over Five Months
Embarking on the journey to develop an open-source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system has been an enlightening experience. Over a span of five months, I’ve crafted a project from concept to a viable MVP, relying solely on my development skills and a robust tech stack. Here, I share insights and lessons learned along the way, hoping to assist fellow developers considering similar endeavors.
Harnessing Power with Laravel and Livewire
One of the standout tools in this project has been Filament, which significantly accelerated backend admin panel development. Tasks that traditionally might take weeks were completed within days, thanks to Filament’s intuitive interface and flexibility.
Laravel paired with Livewire proved to be an ideal combination for solo developers like myself. This synergy eliminated the need to create separate API and frontend layers, streamlining development and reducing complexity. Modern PHP practices, including 99.6% type safety and PHPStan level 7, made coding not only productive but genuinely enjoyable.
Challenges Encountered and Solutions Found
As the CRM’s features expanded, certain hurdles emerged. Custom fields, initially straightforward, caused performance issues once the number per record surpassed fifty. Page load times ballooned from under 250ms to over two seconds. Addressing this required implementing smarter eager loading techniques and employing caching strategies, which restored optimal performance.
Designing a product intended “for everyone” proved to be counterproductive. Narrowing focus to small teams allowed for a more tailored user experience and more manageable feature scope. Additionally, maintaining an open-source project demands ongoing effort; it’s a commitment beyond initial development, requiring community engagement and consistent updates.
Key Technical Strategies
Sticking closely to Laravel conventions provided stability and speed, even if it meant sacrificing some initial excitement in favor of rapid progress. Integrating PHPStan from day one proved invaluable, catching numerous bugs early and reducing debugging time down the line. Moreover, choosing Filament over building an admin panel from scratch proved to be a plot-changer, enabling rapid development and a polished user interface.
Reflections on Development Timeline
Completing a minimal viable product (MVP) within five months feels both quick and measured. It’s fast because the system is production-ready, but also slow because implementing each feature thoroughly inevitably prolongs the process—doing it right takes time.
If you’re interested in the technical details or want to see the live project, visit relaticle.com.
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