From Scratch to SaaS in 9 Days: A Dev’s Journey + Free Insights



This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Shreyan Shukla

Ten days ago, I set a personal challenge: build a new SaaS product from scratch and earn \$1,000 in revenue from it in just 50 days. No team, no budget, just one indie hacker with a laptop, a frozen bank account, and a dream.

Why a Boilerplate?

I’ve always been annoyed at how expensive good boilerplates are. The ones with proper integrations — payments, auth, email, file uploads — either cost too much or require hours of extra work to actually be usable.

So I built SaaSRocket, a full-stack SaaS boilerplate that helps indie devs get their projects off the ground fast, without spending \$300+ just to get started.

The Stack I Used (And Why)

I wanted the stack to be indie-friendly — something anyone could deploy and understand:

  • Next.js + Tailwind CSS for the frontend
  • Supabase for auth, DB, and instant backend APIs
  • Resend for transactional emails
  • Lemon Squeezy for payments (after 5 days of approval wait 😅)
  • Cloudinary for media uploads (esp. useful for blogs)

The goal was to eliminate all the grunt work solo founders dread:

  • Want a blog? Plug in your Cloudinary key and go.
  • Want dashboard sections? Just update one config array.
  • Want payments? Lemon Squeezy is pre-wired.

Things That Broke (And What I Learned)

No real project comes without hiccups. Here’s a few I hit:

  • Unit testing: Out of 9 test suites, 8 failed on my first run 😭. Fixed.
  • Test mode hell: Accidentally shared the test checkout URL instead of the live one. Rookie mistake.
  • Store delays: Lemon Squeezy took 5 days to approve my store, and my bank account was frozen for a week.
  • No domain at launch: SaaSRocket launched on Vercel with no proper .pro domain until after the build.

Despite this, I still shipped the whole thing in 9 days.

What I’d Do Differently Next Time

  • Start marketing before the product is live.
  • Avoid long waits by having backup payment providers.
  • Build a clearer onboarding doc earlier in the dev cycle.
  • Set up better session recording (PostHog had issues for me).

For Devs Who Just Want to Launch Faster

If you’ve ever:

  • Spent hours wiring Stripe for the nth time
  • Struggled to get basic SaaS infra running
  • Wasted a weekend trying to plug in Resend/Supabase/Auth

…then SaaSRocket might be a lifesaver.

🔗 Check it out here — \$49 for the first 500 customers.

It includes:

  • SEO-optimized landing page
  • Dashboard generator
  • Blog with Cloudinary support
  • Lemon Squeezy, Resend, Supabase all integrated
  • Pre-written tests

It’s what I wish I had 2 years ago when I started indie hacking.

What’s Next?

I’m marketing SaaSRocket across Reddit, Twitter/X, Product Hunt, and Dev.to — trying to get my first sale and prove to myself I can make it as a solo founder.

If I hit \$1,000 in the next 50 days, I’ll share a full breakdown of what worked and what didn’t.

Over to You 👇

What’s the one integration that always slows you down when you’re building a new SaaS?
Or what’s your go-to stack for shipping fast?

Drop your thoughts below. Would love to jam!

Keep building,
Shreyan

PS: If you liked this post, I’m on X @Shreyanrants building in public and oversharing my entire journey 😅


This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Shreyan Shukla