Thirty: My 5-Month Journey Developing a CRM Solo with Laravel and Livewire

Building an Open-Source CRM Solo: Lessons Learned After 5 Months with Laravel and Livewire

Embarking on the journey to develop an open-source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system alone can be both rewarding and challenging. Over the past five months, I dedicated myself to creating a CRM using Laravel combined with Livewire, and I’d like to share some valuable insights gained along the way.

What Worked Well

Filament Admin Panel: This toolkit significantly accelerated the development process. Tasks that might have taken weeks were completed within days, making it an indispensable part of my workflow.
Laravel + Livewire Synergy: This combination proved ideal for solo developers, allowing me to build both the backend and frontend without managing separate APIs or frontend frameworks.
Modern PHP Development: Writing PHP today is more enjoyable than ever, especially with high levels of typing (approximately 99.6%) and tools like PHPStan at level 7, which helped maintain code quality and catch bugs early.

Challenges Encountered

Handling Custom Fields: While adding custom fields for records started simple, performance issues arose when exceeding about 50 fields per record. Page load times increased from under 250ms to over 2 seconds. This was mitigated through improved eager loading strategies and caching mechanisms.
Target Audience Focus: Attempting to create a flexible product for “everyone” proved counterproductive, leading to bloated features and complexity. Narrowing my focus to small, tightly-knit teams yielded better results and more manageable scope.
Resource Commitment: Developing open-source projects doesn’t mean free time. Maintaining the codebase, fixing bugs, and implementing features is an ongoing commitment, often more taxing than initial development.

Effective Technology Choices

Adhering to Laravel’s Conventions: While seemingly mundane, sticking to established best practices sped up development and improved maintainability.
Early Adoption of PHPStan: Integrating static analysis from the onset caught numerous issues early, saving time and preventing bugs down the line.
Leveraging Filament Admin Panel: Rather than building an admin interface from scratch, utilizing Filament allowed me to focus on core functionality, resulting in a robust and customizable admin interface quickly.

Reflection

Five months to reach a minimal viable product (MVP) strikes a balance between speed and quality. The project is now production-ready, which feels fast. However, each additional feature tends to require three times the effort, emphasizing the importance of deliberate