MakerGrants

Usually I use Firebase + NextJS for my sites, but this time I decided to learn a new stack and went with AWS Serverless + NextJS.

The first thing I did was look for the name. MakerGrants.com was my first choice so I copped it with Godaddy. Which actually caused a problem later because with AWS Serverless you need to purchase the domain with Route 53. You can't transfer domains for 60 days, so I went ahead and copped MakerGrants.co using Route 53 and everything was good.

Next I went on ThemeForest and purchased a template. I didn't want to get involved in design hell again like my last site, readlist.io.

There was a great template for an HTML/CSS Job Board on Themeforest, so I purchased that. Then it was time to convert into NextJS.

The converting process wasn't too bad. I stripped out all the Jquery and moved everything into components. Figuring out all the CSS took some time, but overall I spent about 3-4 hours converting.

After that I had originally planned to set up a DynamoDB table and connect a backend, but then I got lazy so I just decided to implement the initial list as a static object.

Finally, I set up the MailChimp integration and hooked up the domain, and then launched it here on IndieHackers! This weekend I plan to launch on some other platforms as well.

My friend and client received around 200 ETH from a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) to create his site -- bullionix.io. I was low-key jealous so I started looking into grants that didn't involve equity. It turns out there are a LOT of them!

I did a quick google search for grant aggregators and didn't find anything good. Doesn't mean they don't exist, but couldn't find any on PH.

So I decided to put together my own. That was the inspiration for MakerGrants.co