How I built Opairly: from frustration to live SaaS product
Communication between host families and au pairs runs through WhatsApp groups, loose notes, and verbal agreements. House rules get lost, hour tracking doesn't add up, and when a new au pair arrives, everything starts from scratch.
I decided to fix that. This is the story of how I built Opairly.
The problem
Thousands of families in the Netherlands have an au pair. It works great, until the organization around it fails. And that happens more often than you'd think.
- Communication via WhatsApp: important agreements disappear in an endless stream of messages
- House rules on paper (or worse, not documented at all). New au pair? Explain everything again
- Hour tracking on trust: no structure, no overview, regular disagreements
- Unclear finances: groceries paid upfront, Tikkie forgotten, receipts lost
- Emergencies: children's allergies, doctor's number, emergency procedures. Where was that again?
Each of these problems is small on its own. Together, they make daily life unnecessarily complicated for both the family and the au pair.
Why I built this myself
I didn't see this problem from a distance. We had an au pair ourselves and ran into exactly these frustrations. Agreements disappearing in WhatsApp, hour tracking that didn't add up, house rules we had to re-explain every time. At some point I thought: this can be better.
Existing solutions simply didn't exist. Families used a combination of Google Sheets, WhatsApp groups, paper lists, and shared calendars. Five tools for something that fits in one platform.
The opportunity was clear: one tool that brings everything together. Not complex enterprise software, but a simple, clear app that makes daily life easier.
What Opairly does
Tasks and planning
Recurring tasks by category: childcare, housework, cooking, education. Automatic task generation based on the weekly schedule. Calendar view with filters per child.
House rules
Eight categories with ready-made templates. From bedtimes and screen time to kitchen rules and emergency procedures. Set up once, always available. Including for the next au pair.
Hour tracking
Au pairs log hours by category. Families see a clear weekly overview. Optional hour limits (default: 30 hours per week, 8 hours per day) with visual warnings when exceeded.
Leave management
Au pairs request time off, families approve or deny. Standard 14 days per year, fully tracked in the system.
Finances and Tikkie
Track expenses, upload receipts, Tikkie integration for reimbursement. No more discussions about who paid for what.
Emergency information
Emergency contacts, medical information per child (allergies, medication), family doctor, and step-by-step emergency procedures. Always available, even offline.
Technical choices
The same tech stack as all my projects:
| Component | Technology | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Frontend | Nuxt (Vue.js) | Fast interface, SSR for SEO, PWA capabilities |
| Database & Auth | Supabase | Realtime data, row-level security per household |
| Styling | Tailwind CSS | Consistent design, fast iteration |
| Hosting | Cloudflare | Global speed, affordable |
| Payments | Stripe | Subscriptions and trial periods |
Key design decision: data isolation per household. Each family only sees their own data. That's not just a privacy feature, it's fundamental to the trust users have in the platform.
The build process
Week 1-2: Core
Database architecture with strict separation per household. Authentication, roles (family vs au pair), and the base UI. The foundations need to be solid. You don't cut corners here.
Week 3-4: Tasks and planning
The task system with recurring patterns, calendar view, and hour tracking. This is what users interact with daily, so this got the most design time.
Week 5-6: House rules and administration
Templates for house rules, leave management, emergency information. Features you don't use every day, but that make all the difference when you need them.
Week 7-8: Finances, polish, and launch
Expense tracking, Tikkie integration, PDF exports. Then: user testing with real families, bug fixes, performance optimization. Live.
What I learned
1. Start with the daily problem
The first version of Opairly had no financial features. It focused purely on tasks and planning: the problem families feel every day. Expense tracking and Tikkie integration came only after users asked for it. Build what people use daily first.
2. Onboarding is the product
A tool that takes five minutes to set up gets used. A tool that takes an hour doesn't. The ready-made templates for house rules and the structured setup flow weren't nice-to-haves. They were essential for adoption.
3. The same stack works for everything
The technology I use for a €2,500 website is the same that runs Opairly. The difference is in the complexity of the business logic, not the tooling. That makes it affordable to build ambitious projects.
The result
Opairly is live and growing. The platform offers:
- Tasks and planning: weekly schedule, recurring tasks, calendar view
- House rules: 8 categories with templates, always available
- Hour tracking: by category, with limits and overviews
- Finances: expenses, receipts, Tikkie integration
- Emergency info: medical, contacts, procedures
- Sub-second load times, built on the same performant stack
Pricing: €10/month or €100/year. 14-day free trial.
Proof that one person with the right tools and AI-driven development can build a complete SaaS product that solves a real problem.
Next step
Have an idea for a SaaS product or web application? Book a free call. I'd love to tell you more about the build process and what it would cost for your project.
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