Building Shipstry: 640 Commits, 9 Days, One Launch

On March 3, 2026, I started with an empty folder. On March 11, 2026, Shipstry went live. In between: 640 commits, countless cups of coffee, and a lot of lessons learned about building on the edge. This is the story of how I built it, the technical decisions I made, and what I learned along the way. The Name Before writing a single line of code, I needed a name. I spent an entire afternoon brainstorming with AI. I must have asked for hundreds of suggestions. The AI probably hated me by the end of it. I wanted something that captured the essence of what makers do — we ship products. And I wanted it to feel like a registry, a place where products are officially recorded and discovered. Ship + Registry = Shipstry It sounded nautical, it felt right, and the .com was available. Done. The nautical theme evolved into something more organic: Primary color: Olive Moss (#6B8A67) Accent: Warm Sand (#D4A574) Pricing tiers: Harbor, Voyage, Expedition, Admiral The logo: a geometric sailboat with twin