Custom Web Applications Built for Startups and Growing Products
Applications with real logic behind them — accounts, dashboards, workflows, integrations, and the backend that keeps all of it consistent. I've spent 7+ years on production systems, most recently leading backend work at a growth-stage startup, so the frontend and the system underneath it get the same attention.
What counts as a web app here
The line matters, because it changes the price and the timeline. A website presents content. A web app does work.
You're in web app territory the moment you need user accounts and permissions, a dashboard people log into daily, records that multiple users act on concurrently, scheduled jobs, third-party integrations that must not silently fail, or business rules that have to stay correct when two people hit them at once. That needs a real backend, a real data model, and someone thinking about what happens when a request half-succeeds.
What's included
- Data model and API design before feature work starts — the part that's expensive to change later.
- React frontend built against that API, with real loading, empty, and error states rather than only the happy path.
- Node.js / NestJS backend — authentication, permissions, validation, and the business logic itself.
- Third-party integrations — payments, messaging, storage, or whatever the product depends on, built with retries and failure handling rather than optimism.
- Deployment onto AWS or a managed platform, with a staging environment you can watch the build in.
- Full handover — source, credentials, and assets. No lock-in, ever.
Who this is for
- Founders building an MVP who need one person who can own the whole stack rather than coordinating a frontend contractor and a backend contractor.
- Growing products that have outgrown a no-code tool or a prototype and need something that holds up under real usage.
- Teams with an internal tool problem — the spreadsheet-plus-WhatsApp workflow that has quietly become business-critical.
If the core need is API and system work rather than an interface, backend and API development is the more direct fit.
Related work
Both of these are real projects, described in as much detail as NDA allows:
Real-Time WebSocket Application
Replaced client-side polling with WebSocket-based communication, removing redundant API calls and the lag users were noticing.
Node.js · WebSockets · MySQL Read the case study →AI-Assisted Search
A document-parsing workflow with AI-assisted retrieval, replacing rigid keyword search that wasn't surfacing the right results.
Node.js · AI-assisted search · MySQL Read the case study →Common questions
A website presents content; a web app does work. The moment you need user accounts, permissions, a dashboard, stored records people act on, or business rules that have to stay correct under concurrent use, you're building an application — and it needs a real backend, not a contact form.
Yes, and that's a normal outcome rather than a failure. You get the complete source, credentials, and assets at handover with no lock-in, so bringing the work in-house later is a decision you can make freely.
Both. Joining an existing codebase is common — I'll usually ask for read access first so I can scope honestly rather than guess at what's already there.
Longer than a website — larger builds with custom functionality typically run 4–6 weeks, and genuinely complex applications run longer than that. You'll get a specific estimate after the discovery call rather than an optimistic number upfront.
Probably not, and it's better to say so now. I'm a solo freelancer — if you need parallel workstreams or 24/7 on-call coverage, an agency or an in-house hire will serve you better.
Building something with real logic behind it? Tell me what it needs to do and I'll scope it honestly — including whether it's a fit for a solo developer.