I initially pursued becoming a developer because I wanted to build my ideas out and learning to code seemed to be the easiest way. You can just come up with solutions to problems anywhere in the world using just your laptop. Being more on the introverted side, I never liked to be in the “field” talking to prospects and selling face to face (door to door) or on the phone (I've tried and I sucked at it).

Learning software development was empowering, but at the same time it didn't make things much easier right away. You still have to pick a programming language, framework, and the learning never seems to stop.

What about No-Code?

Over the past few there has been an explosion of low-code and no-code solutions but it still feels like there isn't enough. There is still a big barrier between your idea and the product. Additionally, many developer entrepreneurs don't want to pay a monthly fee for something they can build themselves. I can relate.

Why pay $29/month for something that can easily be deployed to Vercel for free? Especially if you are just testing out an idea.

Templates?

WordPress and Shopify themes have a good model for getting a solution up and running quickly. And recently there have been more code-oriented templates on the market like TailwindUI and such. But those are just landing page templates. What about if you want to build something fullstack? Like a job board or a directory. You will have to dig through GitHub and be lucky to stumble upon a template. But even then, you will need to spend about a week learning the stack that is used and most times those templates aren't production level solutions.

So what is the solution?

Here is the tech stack that I believe is the most flexible for developers who are looking to build our their ideas and launch something to production in 2023:

1. Next.js

Next.js is quickly becoming a Fullstack framework where you can build most of what you need with the API routes.

2. Prisma

If you need a database for storage, you can use Prisma and pretty much any database provider that you need like PlanetScale or such.

3. Sanity

If you need a CMS, there are many solutions out there. However, with the recent update, Sanity now allows you to host your Sanity CMS backend on a Next.js route. So your hobby/side project will literally have $0 in upstart costs.

Stay tuned as I will be releasing tutorials and templates for this tech stack to help you quickly go from idea to launch!