WindowBeez

Overview

This was my first startup project. It has a fond place in my heart though I'm quite embarrassed now about the design and some of the code. It's since been taken offline.

The idea with this platform was to create a service which allowed door to door window cleaners to collect payment digitally online. I had a fella knock on my door and offer to clean my windows which I accepted. He said he'd be back in a few days to do the work and collect payment. Unfortunately I was away for work when he did the cleaning and came to collect payment. He never visited again and I had no way of getting in touch with him. Racked by guilt I did some research and found that there weren't any good tools for digitising payment collection for window cleaners at the time. I then spoke to a couple of cleaners to see if it's something they would be interested in and they said they were.

So I built WindowBeez which allowed window cleaners to pass a card to their clients and allowed the clients to set up recurring/subscription payments online for their cleaner.

I launched the product but struggled with sales as it turns out a lot of window cleaners prefer taking cash payments rather than having auditable payments come in online... Oops!

It was still a fun full stack development project that let me apply my software development skills to deploy a solution to a problem. It was also a great learning opportunity for what it takes to launch a startup.

Tech Stack & Architecture

• Ruby on Rails
• Stripe Connect
• Postgres
• Bulma

At the time I had been learning Ruby on Rails and wanted to apply those skills to a new project. These days I much prefer working in the TypeScript ecosystem and would architect this app very differently.

Key Features

• Stripe Connect split subscriptions
• Notifications

Challenges & Learnings

It was my first time building a 'real' project that went live with real users. I'm proud of what I accomplished but I'm also a little bit embarrassed about what was built, but what developer isn't nearly a decade after they hacked something together? It came with lots of learnings about how to implement fullstack applications and integrate with providers such as Stripe.

I also learned a lot about launching a startup. This was my first time having to set up domains and DNS, hosting production ready DBs, hosting production ready backends, creating the 'boilerplate' new product things like terms and conditions, and setting up sales/marketing operations. It was super valuable to build this project and it helped shape who I am today.