The challenge
A pre-seed founder had done the hard product-design work. They had a complete Figma file for a two-sided marketplace and a clear vision, but no engineering team to turn it into something real. They needed it live, with real transactions, in two weeks.
A marketplace is harder to ship fast than a single-user app because it has two sides that both have to work, and money moving between them. The constraint we set was to resist building the whole vision and instead ship the one core loop that makes a marketplace a marketplace: a seller can list, a buyer can discover, and a transaction completes with the seller getting paid.
How we approached it
A two-engineer pod with a QA engineer and a Hashorn PM. Having a finished Figma file changed the shape of the work: it removed the design-decision loop entirely, so on day two we translated the design into a small reusable component library and then built screens directly against it. That kept the interface consistent and on-brand while letting the engineers move at full speed.
We locked the payment and payout model on day one, before writing feature code, because in a marketplace the money flow shapes the data model and the trust features. Everything not on the core loop went on the cut list.
What we shipped
Days 1 to 2, foundation and design system. Scope lock against the Figma file, buyer and seller auth, the core data model, and a reusable component library derived from the design.
Days 3 to 5, the supply side. Seller onboarding, listing creation and management, and the seller dashboard, built straight from the Figma screens.
Days 6 to 8, the demand side. Buyer search and filtering, the listing detail page, and checkout, with Stripe Connect handling payment and a split payout to the seller.
Days 9 to 11, trust and polish. Confirmations, receipts, a minimal dispute admin view, plus mobile, error and loading states, and a first-run experience for each side.
Days 12 to 14, QA and launch. A structured bug bash with the money paths tested hardest, Playwright on both sides' critical flows, and a real production launch with the first buyers and sellers onboarded.
The outcome
- A live, two-sided marketplace in two weeks, from a Figma file to real transactions in production.
- Both sides working end to end: sellers listing, buyers discovering and checking out, and split payouts settling to sellers.
- A clean codebase the founder owns, with a v2 backlog driven by the first real transactions.
What we'd repeat
Locking the payment and payout model on day one was the call that kept the build clean. In a marketplace the money flow touches everything, so deciding it first meant the data model and the trust features were right the first time. The other win was treating the Figma file as a head start rather than a spec to argue with: translating it into a component library once, early, let us build the rest of the screens in hours instead of days.