Building a CRM Single-Handedly in Five Months: Lessons Learned with Laravel and Livewire

Embarking on the development of an open-source Customer Relationship Management system earlier this year, I gained valuable insights that might benefit fellow developers aiming to create robust SaaS products solo. Over a five-month period, I navigated the challenges and successes of utilizing modern PHP tools, resulting in a ready-for-production MVP. Here’s a comprehensive overview of my journey.

Key Highlights and Advantages

• Filament: A Game-Changer
  Implementing Filament dramatically accelerated the development process. What would normally take weeks was accomplished in days, enabling swift iteration and feature deployment.

• Laravel with Livewire: An Ideal Pairing for Solo Developers
  This combination eliminates the need for separate API and frontend layers. It allows for a streamlined development approach, especially suited for solo projects, providing a clean, integrated workflow.

• Enjoyable Modern PHP Experience
  Writing PHP has become more enjoyable and productive. With 99.6% type coverage and PHPStan at level 7, the codebase is reliable, maintainable, and developer-friendly.

Challenges Encountered

• Scaling Custom Fields
  Initially, custom fields appeared straightforward. However, handling over 50 per record caused significant performance degradation—page load times surged from 250ms to around 2 seconds. Addressing this required implementing more efficient eager loading strategies and caching mechanisms.

• Narrowing the Focus
  Designing a universal solution meant catering to all user types, which proved impractical. Narrowing the target to small teams allowed for more tailored features and a better user experience.

• Open-Source Commitment
  Open-sourcing a project does not equate to free time. Ongoing maintenance, bug fixes, and community support demand consistent dedication.

Technical Strategies That Yielded Results

• Adhering to Laravel Conventions
  Though seemingly mundane, sticking to Laravel standards ensured rapid development and easier onboarding for new contributors or collaborators.

• Early Integration of PHPStan
  Incorporating static analysis from day one uncovered numerous bugs early, saving time and reducing future debugging efforts.

• Leveraging Filament for Admin Panels
  Instead of building an admin interface from scratch, utilizing Filament sped up development and provided a polished, extendable interface.

Reflections on the Timeline

Completing an MVP within five months strikes a balance between speed and thoroughness. It’s