← Case Studies

Small Business Suite

One backend, one database, six live sites. A multi-tenant web platform for small businesses — booking, payments, admin dashboards, and automated emails.

Node.js · Express · Supabase · Stripe · Resend · Twilio · Sentry · 2026 · Live

Live Platform

webplatform-api.vercel.app

Fully interactive — click through to explore demos and admin access. Open full screen ↗

The Research

Before writing any code, I spent time at Detroit-area farmers markets talking directly with small business owners — bakery owners, salon operators, restaurant managers, and wellness studio owners — about what software they were using, what they were paying for it, and what frustrated them about it.

The pattern was consistent: owners were locked into generic platforms that charged monthly fees in perpetuity, applied their own branding over everything, and in some cases took a cut of every transaction. Most had never seriously considered a custom alternative because they assumed it would require a developer on retainer to maintain. That assumption is exactly what this suite is built to disprove.

The Problem

Small businesses run on fragmented tools — a POS from one vendor, a website from another, employee scheduling from a third. Toast charges $200–500/month. Square charges per transaction and per feature. 7shifts charges per employee just to manage a schedule. None of them connect. None were built for the independent business owner who needs everything to work without a developer on call.

The Platform

This is one Node/Express API serving every web surface a business needs — customer website, customer account portal, and admin dashboard — all reading from one Supabase database. A change made anywhere propagates everywhere instantly. Menu update from the admin? The website reflects it in real time. No redeploy. No developer required.

Per-tenant Stripe and Resend keys live in the database — not in environment variables — so the shared backend never needs redeploying for a new client. Onboarding a new business means copying the frontend repo, deploying it, and inserting a tenant row. A step-by-step onboarding wizard then walks the owner through connecting Stripe, Resend, and a custom domain via the Cloudflare API, which adds DNS records automatically.

Customer-facing
Website + Account Portal
Operations
Admin Dashboard
Employee Management
Employee Scheduling App

Deployments

The platform is multi-tenant from day one — every table carries a tenant_id, so onboarding a new business is one database row and a frontend deploy. Currently live across five verticals.

The Wellness Co. is the platform's first real client — a Michigan wellness studio that had no online presence before this. The remaining four are spec builds showing what the platform looks like across different business types.

The Wellness Co. Real client

A Michigan wellness studio that went from zero online presence to a fully live booking platform with Stripe payments and an owner admin dashboard. The client imported their own Stripe account, Resend, and branding through the onboarding wizard without writing a line of code.

The Bakery Co. Spec

Ordering platform with five surfaces — customer site, admin dashboard, and AI ordering via a production MCP server. Shipped the week Google announced WebMCP at I/O 2026.

The Salon Co. Spec

14-page marketing and booking site for a luxury hair salon — custom branding, sticky header, auto-rotating reviews, FAQ accordion, and gallery with filters. No templates. No monthly platform fee.

The Sports Bar Co. Spec

Reservations and events platform for a Detroit sports bar — full menu, weekly events calendar, table reservations, and a private party inquiry form. Owners control everything without a developer on retainer.

The Inn Co. Spec

Direct booking platform for a Detroit boutique hotel — room listings, availability management, Stripe-powered reservations, and a full admin dashboard. Eliminates 15–25% third-party commission on every booking.

The Admin Dashboard

A protected single-page dashboard that gives the business owner full control over their storefront without touching code or a database. Every admin route verifies a JWT server-side — the security lives on the server, not in the browser.

The Employee Layer

The Employee Scheduler is the staff management surface of the platform — a native iOS app that handles everything 7shifts charges per seat for. Managers get a drag-and-drop schedule builder, overtime alerts, and labor cost reporting. Staff get clock-in/out with break tracking, shift swaps, time-off requests, and direct messaging. All real-time via Supabase Realtime websockets, push notifications via a custom Deno Edge Function calling APNs directly.

Employee Scheduler
Employee Scheduler iOS

iOS employee scheduling — manager and staff surfaces in one app

The Outcome

The Wellness Co., a Michigan wellness studio, had no online presence before this platform — bookings were by phone, payments were in person, and the owner had no visibility into who was coming in or when. Today, customers book and pay online themselves. Cancellations are handled automatically by the 48-hour policy. The owner manages every appointment, payment, and customer from one dashboard. No calls. No spreadsheets.

That's what the platform replaces: the overhead, not just the software. Zero commission per order versus 15–30% on delivery platforms. Zero monthly platform fee versus $200–500/month for Toast or Square. Every new business is one database row and a frontend deploy. The platform ships with 130 passing tests and Sentry error tracking in production.