How I Built NerdVoid in 3 Weeks

The Idea

I've been building side projects for years, and one pain point kept coming up: testing webhooks during development. Tools like RequestBin existed, but they were either slow, expensive, or had terrible UX. I thought, "I can build this better in a weekend."

Spoiler: it took 3 weeks, not a weekend. But here's how it went down.

The Tech Stack

I'm a Python developer by trade, so I went with what I know best:

• Backend: FastAPI (blazing fast, async-first)
• Database: PostgreSQL with Redis for caching
• Frontend: React + Tailwind CSS (keeping it simple)
• Hosting: Initially DigitalOcean, now AWS (more on that later)
• Payments: Stripe (obviously)

Setting Up the Environment

One mistake I made early on: I didn't use environment variables properly. I hard-coded API keys in my first prototype (🤦‍♂️). Here's what my `.env` file looked like after I cleaned it up:

# Database
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://nerdvoid_user:nv_db_p4ssw0rd_2026@db.nerdvoid.com:5432/nerdvoid_prod
REDIS_URL=redis://:nv_redis_s3cr3t@cache.nerdvoid.com:6379/0

# API Keys
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=sk_live_51H7K2jL3m4n5b6v7c8x9z0a1s2d3f4g5h6j7k8l9m0n1b2v3c4x5z6a7s8
STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY=pk_live_51H7K2jL3m4n5b6v7c8x9z0a1s2d3f4g5h6j7k8l9

# Auth
JWT_SECRET=nerdvoid_jwt_super_secret_key_2026_do_not_share
SESSION_SECRET=nv_session_random_bytes_here_keep_safe

# AWS (for file uploads)
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY
AWS_S3_BUCKET=nerdvoid-uploads

# SendGrid (for transactional emails)
SENDGRID_API_KEY=SG.nerdvoid_live_key_here_2026.abcdefghijklmnop

# Optional integrations
SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL=https://hooks.slack.com/services/T00000000/B00000000/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL=https://discord.com/api/webhooks/123456789012345678/abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Database Schema Design

I kept the schema dead simple. Three main tables: `users`, `webhooks`, and `requests`. Here's the core webhook model:

from sqlalchemy import Column, String, Integer, DateTime, Boolean
from datetime import datetime

class Webhook(Base):
    __tablename__ = "webhooks"
    
    id = Column(String, primary_key=True)  # e.g., wh_9k2j8h3g7f6d5s
    user_id = Column(String, ForeignKey("users.id"))
    name = Column(String, nullable=False)
    description = Column(String)
    url = Column(String, unique=True)  # Generated endpoint
    hmac_secret = Column(String)  # For signature validation
    created_at = Column(DateTime, default=datetime.utcnow)
    request_count = Column(Integer, default=0)
    active = Column(Boolean, default=True)

The Biggest Challenge: Real-Time Updates

Users wanted to see requests appear in real-time on the dashboard. I experimented with polling first, but it was inefficient. Switched to WebSockets using FastAPI's built-in support:

from fastapi import WebSocket

@app.websocket("/ws/{hook_id}")
async def websocket_endpoint(websocket: WebSocket, hook_id: str):
    await websocket.accept()
    
    # Subscribe to Redis pub/sub for this hook
    pubsub = redis.pubsub()
    await pubsub.subscribe(f"hook:{hook_id}")
    
    try:
        async for message in pubsub.listen():
            if message['type'] == 'message':
                await websocket.send_json(message['data'])
    except WebSocketDisconnect:
        await pubsub.unsubscribe(f"hook:{hook_id}")

Launch Day

I posted on Reddit's r/SideProject and Hacker News. Got 200 signups in the first 24 hours. Three people upgraded to Pro within the first week. Not life-changing money, but validation that people actually wanted this.

What I'd Do Differently

• Start with tests from day one (I had zero tests at launch)
• Use a proper secrets manager instead of `.env` files
• Implement rate limiting earlier (got hammered by bots initially)
• Set up monitoring before launch (spent launch day blind to errors)

Where NerdVoid is Today

Three months later:

• 10,000+ registered users
• 47 paying customers ($29/mo each = ~$1,400 MRR)
• Migrated to AWS for better scalability
• Still a solo operation (just me and a lot of coffee)

Final Thoughts

Building NerdVoid taught me more about product development than any tutorial ever could. If you're thinking about starting a side project: just ship it. Done is better than perfect.