A few months ago I didn't know much about coding. Today I have a full stack marketplace running with a real API, a live database, user authentication, image uploads, messaging and a React frontend.
The Idea
Kisumu has a huge secondhand clothes market. Mitumba is everywhere — Kibuye market, roadside stalls, WhatsApp groups. But there is no dedicated digital platform for it. If you want to sell a jacket in Kondele you have no easy way to reach buyers in your area. If you want to find size L shoes in CBD you have to physically go and look.
I wanted to build something that solved a real local problem. Not another todo app. Not another weather app. Something that could actually help people in my city.
That is how Kisumu Marketplace was born.
The Tech Stack I Chose
I built the backend in Go using the Gin framework. The database is PostgreSQL hosted on Neon.tech — a free cloud database that saved me more than once when my laptop broke. Authentication uses JWT tokens and bcrypt for password hashing. Images are uploaded to Cloudinary. The frontend is React with Tailwind CSS.
I chose Go because Zone 01 teaches it and I wanted to go deep on one language rather than shallow on many. I chose PostgreSQL because it is the industry standard and learning it properly matters. I chose React because it is the most in-demand frontend framework and I wanted to build something real with it.
What I Learned
I learned Go from scratch while building this. I learned React from scratch while building this. I learned PostgreSQL, JWT, bcrypt, Cloudinary, Tailwind, axios, React Router and more — all by needing them for this project.
The most valuable thing I learned is that you understand something properly only when you build with it. Reading about JWT is nothing like debugging a 401 Unauthorized error at midnight.
I also learned that documentation is a skill. Writing this article, explaining how things work, is making me understand my own project better.
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