What am I working on? Headless Ecommerce

I've always had a love for commerce. My father had a shop when I was kid (yes, a real physical store), and I would play around behind the counter thinking how wonderful it all was. It wasn't my dream at the time to become a store owner. I wanted to be a Physicist and solve the universe's mysteries. But the joy I remembered from being in that shop stuck with me.

In 2003, I opened my own online ecommerce store, Dragonwater Tea. It was a fun project. By 2006, I quit my job as an Engineering Manager and went to work on it full-time. I leased a new warehouse, hired my first employee, and settled into the routine of marketing and shipping. In late 2008, with the financial crisis known as the Great Recession in full swing, I started to see the writing on the wall. Before the recession, funding was easy to come by, too easy, which is why the crisis happened in the first place. When things slowed down, I realized I had taken on too much debt in my quest for growth. The business was going to die. In 2009, I shut the doors for good. But it had been an educational 6 year run. I had no regrets.

Fast-forward 15 years and I started to get the itch again. So this year I began a new side project, Jade & Lotus, which morphed into Jade Solutions, to provide a headless ecommerce solution of my own. Now I know there are a lot of very capable competitors in the ecommerce space. I never planned to take them on. The reality is, I planned only to create a platform that was my own where I could launch and run multiple stores with ease.

For this, I used the following technologies, building on my existing knowledge, areas I wanted to dive deeper into, and solutions that just demanded to be used:

• Next.js: I absolutely love Next
• React: obviously
• Typescript: can't live without it
• Tailwind: like a breath of fresh air
• Express/Node: sticking with Javascript throughout the stack
• PostgreSQL: decades of experience with it
• Prisma: a new found love
• Docker: love docker, wouldn't develop without it
• Lerna: for package management and publishing

I'm very focused on Javascript/Typescript these days. I've used a lot of different languages, but as my career matures, I find it best to start specializing. It's funny because I first used Javascript at the very start of my career, 27 years ago. It was horrible then. But it's pretty great now.

The api, storefront, and admin interfaces are all in production now. I'm continuing the development of new features, but its time to start in depth planning for products, marketing, funding, and everything else.

Wish me luck!