SaaS Foundry

This is a submission for the MLH x DEV Writing Challenge

🚀 SaaS Foundry — Project Submission

🛠️ What I Built

SaaS Foundry is a starter kit for building SaaS products. It handles the boring setup work so you can get straight to building the actual thing.

I built it with Next.js and Supabase. It ships with authentication, database integration, and a clean UI already wired up. The idea came from my own frustration — and from watching other developers do the same thing — spending days on auth flows, database schemas, and deployment configs before writing a single line of product code. SaaS Foundry tries to cut that down to minutes instead of days.

Along the way I learned a few things the hard way:

• 🧱 How to structure a Next.js App Router project so it doesn't fall apart as it grows
• 🔐 How to get Supabase Row Level Security right (and what happens when you don't)
• 🌍 How to manage environment variables and secrets across local dev and Vercel
• 🧩 How to build UI components that are actually reusable instead of ones you rewrite every time

🎬 Demo

🔗 Live Demo: https://saas-foundry-next-supabase.vercel.app/

The app is deployed on Vercel and works end to end. You can try:

• ✍️ Sign-up and sign-in through Supabase Auth
• 🔒 Protected dashboard routes
• 💾 User data that's actually stored in the database

(I'll add a short walkthrough video here soon to show the flows in action.)

🎉 Hackathon Experience

I took part in the October MLH × DEV Writing Challenge.

This one was different from a typical hackathon for me. It wasn't just about writing code — it was about writing about the code. Documenting what I built, explaining it clearly, and sharing it with the DEV community pushed me in a way that a pure build sprint wouldn't have.

Reading other people's submissions was honestly one of the best parts. 👀 Seeing how different hackers approached the same prompt — some with polished demos, some with raw honesty about what didn't work — made me realize that "shipping" isn't just deploying. It's also telling the story of what you shipped.

What I'll remember most is that small moment when the deployment finally worked end to end with Supabase auth. 🎯 It's a tiny win in the grand scheme of things, but it felt good. And then writing this submission about it felt like closing the loop.

The October MLH × DEV Writing Challenge reminded me to put my work out in public instead of letting it sit in a private repo. That's a habit I want to keep. 💪