2020 - 2022
Custom Rental Reservations Platform
At a glance
- As the sole developer, designed and implemented an online booking platform and reservation management system.
- Successfully launched the platform and achieved a monthly recurring revenue (MRR) of $60,000 in 12 months.
What's The Bindel?
The Bindel is an online rental booking platform for short-term stays in Austin, Texas, offering a fun and simple user experience for guests.
Technology Stack and Implementation Approach
As the sole developer I prioritize choosing technology that allows me to ship features quickly. My go-to stack for The Bindel included Python, FastAPI, and MongoDB for the backend, and NuxtJs + TypeScript for the frontend. The entire project was hosted on DigitalOcean and a simple Bash script was used for CI/CD.
For the frontend, I chose NuxtJs due to its Server-Side-Generation (SSG) capabilities and familiarity with VueJs. Since Nuxt supports both SSG for SEO and a fast Single Page Application (SPA) for users, the best of both worlds can be achieved. TypeScript's compile-time safety helps get features working with less trial and error.
For the backend, I opted for FastApi and MongoDB. FastAPI's out-of-the-box OpenAPI support made it easy to integrate with the frontend. OpenAPI is also very helpful in testing the backend independently of the frontend implementation. MongoDB was a clear choice as it allowed us to move quickly without the initial effort of defining a strong data model. Later, Mongo's Aggregation Pipeline enabled sensible cross-collection “joins” after patterns in the data began to emerge.
The Bindel — Wireframes illustrating the location and unit-type pickers in their open and intentionally hap-hazard appearance.
Making it fun
To make the frontend fun and engaging, despite competition from other players with bigger budgets, we focused on keeping the Bindel site simple and enjoyable. One key area that received extra attention was the neighborhood and unit-type picker. To achieve a seamless and enjoyable experience, the navigation menu haphazardly unfolds into a stack of cards, each featuring a neighborhood with a cute icon to entice interest. Similarly, the unit picker works the same way, with slightly bigger cards to help distinguish amenities.
Bindel navigation menu implemented.
For the product detail page (PDP), we relied heavily on previously established patterns, as people already know how to shop stays online. Our efforts focused on making the experience blazing fast. Opening the photo gallery is instantaneous, and so is interacting with the rest of the page, calendar, buy-box, and so on.
Admin Tools
The website has a significant amount of admin functionality, which includes managing neighborhoods, unit types, and pricing, each with its own dedicated admin interface. However, the most critical admin work was focused on the guest experience, specifically handling reservations, move-in and move-out, invoicing, and payments. To improve upon Stripe's out-of-the-box functionality, we developed our own invoicing tool designed to address the intricacies of the rental industry. Our primary goal was to make the process simple and error-proof for the customer-facing staff.
Check it out
Visit The Bindel.