[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":170},["ShallowReactive",2],{"post-en-twee-producten-een-niche":3,"surround-en-twee-producten-een-niche":165},{"id":4,"title":5,"badge":6,"body":8,"date":142,"description":143,"extension":144,"faq":145,"image":155,"meta":158,"navigation":159,"path":160,"seo":161,"stem":162,"updated":163,"__hash__":164},"posts_en\u002Fblog\u002Fen\u002Ftwee-producten-een-niche.md","Two products, one niche: what I learned by building both sides",{"label":7},"Story",{"type":9,"value":10,"toc":134},"minimark",[11,21,24,27,30,40,43,48,51,54,57,61,64,67,75,79,82,85,93,96,100,103,111,114],[12,13,14,15,20],"p",{},"Last year I built ",[16,17,19],"a",{"href":18},"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fopairly-case-study","Opairly",". A coordination tool for families with an au pair, because we had one ourselves and were running into every frustration I describe in that post. WhatsApp chaos, house rules nobody could find, hours nobody trusted.",[12,22,23],{},"What I didn't tell you in that post: Opairly solves the problem from one side. The family's side.",[12,25,26],{},"The au pair has a different life. She's 22, living in another country for the first time, has no friends nearby, and goes online to ask questions nobody around her can answer. What do you wear to a Dutch six-year-old's birthday party? How do you register for a BSN? What do you tell your host mother when you're feeling rough? What Sunday rituals do you need to not feel alone in a strange city?",[12,28,29],{},"Our au pair Juliana was asking exactly those questions. Not us, because that would be weird. TikTok, Pinterest, Substack. And she wasn't finding a single place that pulled it all together for her.",[12,31,32,33,39],{},"So I built her one. ",[16,34,38],{"href":35,"rel":36},"https:\u002F\u002Faupairpromax.com",[37],"nofollow","Aupairpromax.com",". Made for Juliana, written by Juliana, aimed at au pairs in the Netherlands who are googling exactly the same things.",[12,41,42],{},"Two products, one niche, two completely different sides. And there's a lesson in that about how you build software for people you stand close to.",[44,45,47],"h2",{"id":46},"two-sides-of-the-same-niche","Two sides of the same niche",[12,49,50],{},"Opairly is enterprise-ish. Logins, dashboards, tables, time tracking, a button for everything. It looks like something you open every morning with a cup of coffee and a to-do list. Because that's what a host family does.",[12,52,53],{},"Aupairpromax is the opposite. Hot pink, scrapbook aesthetic, polaroids, hand-drawn arrows, a journal voice. It looks like something you scroll on your phone in the evening before you fall asleep. Because that's what a 22-year-old in Amsterdam does.",[12,55,56],{},"Same stack: Nuxt, Tailwind, Supabase, Cloudflare. Different soul. Different language. Different pace. Different time of day. Two products that would never bump into each other in a SaaS marketplace, but that tell the same story from two different people.",[44,58,60],{"id":59},"what-i-learned-by-building-it-from-both-sides","What I learned by building it from both sides",[12,62,63],{},"When I built Opairly, I thought I understood the niche. I was in it. I knew what it felt like as a host father to want a schedule, to lose a receipt, to want to check the hours one more time. I built for myself and for people like me.",[12,65,66],{},"But the niche is bigger than that. There are two people facing each other in a house, and both of them have their own software hunger. It wasn't until I started thinking about what Juliana actually needed that I realised I'd only built half the story.",[12,68,69,70,74],{},"This is the same pattern that produced ",[16,71,73],{"href":72},"\u002Fen\u002Fportfolio\u002Fgolfly","Golfly",". I built a website with a customer-tool for a golf coach, discovered that his pain (fragmented tools for bookings, leads, payments, swing analysis) applied to hundreds of other golf pros in the Netherlands, and built a product around it. Niche work starts with one person and grows toward the people standing next to that person.",[44,76,78],{"id":77},"what-ai-driven-development-unlocks-here","What AI-driven development unlocks here",[12,80,81],{},"Aupairpromax cost me about five hours. Scattered between putting the kids to bed and my own bedtime, with a laptop on the couch. I let AI agents do most of the actual work while I made the calls: the design, the architecture, the tone, the story. No client, no budget, no quote, no scope document. Just an idea, an au pair who was going to use it, and the time that was left between kids and sleep.",[12,83,84],{},"Five years ago, a project like this wasn't even something you'd consider. A personal gift in the form of a complete website with its own design system, content strategy, and working email flow? You don't call a developer for that. You buy a Squarespace template and hope for the best.",[12,86,87,88,92],{},"What's changed is that the same ",[16,89,91],{"href":90},"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Ftech-stack","tech stack"," I use for €5,000 client projects also works for something that takes a few evenings. The boilerplate is gone, the setup time is gone. What used to be a week of work is now an evening. What's left is the taste, the design, the story. And that's exactly what these kinds of projects are about.",[12,94,95],{},"It's also why I think a developer's portfolio is going to look different. Not just client projects, but the side projects you can finally afford to build because the friction is gone.",[44,97,99],{"id":98},"two-sides-one-niche-one-developer","Two sides, one niche, one developer",[12,101,102],{},"Codavo's portfolio now has two products in the same niche. Opairly for the host families. Aupairpromax for the au pair. Both live. Both with real users. Both built by the same person who happens to host an au pair.",[12,104,105,106,110],{},"Got an idea for a project where you stand close to the user yourself? A SaaS, a web app, or a personal gift that deserves to be built well? ",[16,107,109],{"href":108},"\u002Fen\u002Fcontact","Book a free 30-minute call",". I'm most excited about work where the builder and the user are almost the same person.",[12,112,113],{},"Read also:",[115,116,117,123,128],"ul",{},[118,119,120],"li",{},[16,121,122],{"href":18},"How I built Opairly: from frustration to live SaaS product",[118,124,125],{},[16,126,127],{"href":90},"The tech stack I use (and why)",[118,129,130],{},[16,131,133],{"href":132},"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fbuild-a-saas-mvp","Building a SaaS MVP: from idea to first paying customer",{"title":135,"searchDepth":136,"depth":136,"links":137},"",2,[138,139,140,141],{"id":46,"depth":136,"text":47},{"id":59,"depth":136,"text":60},{"id":77,"depth":136,"text":78},{"id":98,"depth":136,"text":99},"2026-04-11","The story behind Aupairpromax, the second product I built in the au pair niche. What I learned by approaching the same world from two completely different sides.","md",[146,149,152],{"label":147,"content":148},"How long did Aupairpromax take to build?","About five hours, scattered between putting the kids to bed and my own bedtime. I let AI agents do most of the actual work while I made the calls: the design, the architecture, the tone, the story. That works because it's a content site with no customer-tools, dashboards, or payment integrations, on a stack I use every day. A client project with the same polish would take meaningfully more time: discovery calls, design iterations, a custom customer-tool. This is the kind of work where AI removes the boilerplate, not the thinking.",{"label":150,"content":151},"What technology does Aupairpromax use?","Nuxt (Vue.js), Tailwind CSS, Supabase, and Cloudflare. The exact same stack as Opairly and every Codavo client project. Same code, completely different design.",{"label":153,"content":154},"Do you build personal projects for other people too?","Yes, but selectively, and only when I believe in the story. Book a free call if you have an idea you stand close to yourself.",{"src":156,"alt":157},"\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Ftwee-producten-een-niche.webp","Two products, one niche - Codavo blog",{},true,"\u002Fblog\u002Fen\u002Ftwee-producten-een-niche",{"title":5,"description":143},"blog\u002Fen\u002Ftwee-producten-een-niche",null,"Z32qDVHQRLYLx2NwgAI1S3b5T-7FYs4uAHO5jzjnQzk",[166,163],{"title":167,"path":168,"stem":169,"children":-1},"Template vs custom - when is it worth it?","\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Ftemplate-vs-custom","blog\u002Fen\u002Ftemplate-vs-custom",1786711770826]