From Idea to MVP in 48 Hours: A Django React Starter Kit That Works

By Alex on 8/1/2024

For the past decade, we’ve been building (and selling) startups, consulting on projects, and building an ecosystem of tools to launch faster. We decide to take a pause and collect some of the ideas, frameworks, and tools that we use over and over again.

A few months later, and the slimsaas kit was born. A fully featured starter kit with authentication, payments, email integrations, an SEO-ready marketing site/blog, and everything we need to deploy quickly. We needed this tech in almost 95% of the projects we built.

The Tech Stack

When building a starter kit, there is a balance between hitting all of the features you want, while not introducing too much bloat (like many of the open source starter kits).

Here’s a breakdown of the key components:

1. Streamlined Docker Configuration A single command - docker compose up - initializes your entire stack. This includes the frontend, backend, database, and even a static marketing site. Everything is containerized and configured to work together seamlessly, eliminating environment-related issues. When ready to deploy, the reverse proxy configuration automates a Let’s Encrypt SSL setup.

2. Comprehensive Authentication System We’ve implemented a full suite of authentication features: email verification, password resets, multi-factor authentication with QR codes, and social logins. It’s OAuth 2.0 compliant, while still maintaining a smooth user experience. The frontend components are all styled with Daisy UI and Tailwind to allow you to swap in the components you need for your project.

3. Integrated Stripe Payment System Payment functionality is pre-configured. This includes support for subscriptions, one-time charges, and webhook handling. It allows for immediate monetization capabilities as soon as your MVP is live. We believe in a frictionless setup. Much of our software is set up to reduce the amount of steps to payment flows. We provide components for you to swap in the right flow for your business.

4. High-Performance Marketing Site Built with Astro, the marketing site offers exceptional loading speeds and SEO-friendliness. It includes a built-in blog system, enabling content marketing strategies from day one.

5. Polished UI with Minimal Effort We’ve incorporated Tailwind and DaisyUI, providing access to over 32 themes out of the box. This allows for a professional appearance without the immediate need for custom design work.

Build the features that matter

None of the above makes your project special, but it provides the foundation for you to decorate and launch quickly. Ultimately, the value of an idea is realized only through its implementation. And most people burnout before they get there.

If you create something using these tools, I’d be interested in hearing about your experience and seeing your results. I’d love to feature you on our site!