Original Title: I Built a Launchpad in 3 Days for $400 (and so can you)
Original Author: ultra

Original Translation: Luffy, Foresight News

Last weekend, I pulled an all-nighter to create the Blind project just to prove a point: building a meaningful product doesn't require millions of dollars in funding, months of work, or even a team.

Blind is a token issuance platform (Launchpad) built on the Base chain, running on Flaunch's infrastructure. It explores a new mechanism: allowing token creators to choose which personal information to disclose when issuing a token.

This way, creators can leverage their reputation or qualifications without fully revealing their real identity, avoiding the trouble that usually comes with being a "token influencer." Additionally, creators can set a presale entry threshold, only allowing users who meet the minimum requirements to participate.

Purpose of This Article

This article aims to share a universal framework from my journey from "idea" to "product."

As I often say, the current 6-12 months are the "golden period for idea implementation," where using AI tools to turn creativity into reality is exceptionally easy, but few people realize this. For those willing to invest time, this is undoubtedly a huge arbitrage opportunity.

I hope this article inspires more people to try vibecoding, turning their ideas into reality and bringing Web3 back to the realm led by independent developers and small teams where innovation is born daily.

This article assumes readers already have a certain technical background, are familiar with development tools, code repository management, and common component knowledge.

Phase 0: Source of Inspiration

The idea of social capital gating had been brewing in my mind for several months. While frequently using tools like Kaito, Ethos, fantasy.top, time.fun, and researching SocialFi metrics, a recurring question in discussions was: why hasn't anyone created a dashboard that can integrate and display a user's profile across all these platforms, evaluating user qualifications using scores and data?

Over the past six months or so, the "creator score" field has rapidly emerged, allowing people to assess the value of a person or account through various data dimensions.

So, can these metrics be used to set a "participation threshold" (such as the entry requirements for token issuance)? And can creators choose to publicly disclose which metrics while hiding their true identity?

What really prompted me to start developing was seeing Pump.fun's ICO raise $5 billion, and recently heaven's ICO also raised $20 million. In my view, the development difficulty of these two products is not particularly high, so why is the valuation so exaggerated? Moreover, there are many similar successful issuance platforms that have raised huge amounts of funds.

To be fair, in this field, to maintain rationality, we are no longer entangled in the "token valuation logic"; many times, the valuation itself is unreasonable.

Nevertheless, this led to my personal challenge: could I, over a weekend, at a very low cost, without relying on external help, create a product of comparable level?

My goal is not to create a commercial product, issue tokens, or even make money, but to prove that "this can be done" and hope that more people will follow this path.

Phase 1: Problem Breakdown

After having the idea, the first step is to break it down into core components and make decisions for each component. For the "issuance platform with social access control," I outlined the following sub-issues:

On-chain Technology Stack Selection

The primary decision is "which chain to deploy on," a choice that will impact all subsequent implementation aspects. At the time, there were two clear options: Solana and Base.

Solana

Pros:

· Chain with the highest transaction volume for meme coins;

· Spotlight effect: Any project deployed here can easily gain some attention.

Cons:

· Low implementation flexibility, must adhere to existing token standards;

· High development complexity, requiring many workarounds;

· Long development cycle;

· High and unstable infrastructure costs.

Base

Pros:

· Chain in the EVM ecosystem with the highest transaction volume for meme coins;

· Excellent developer support;

· Outstanding EVM development experience;

· Can directly reuse existing infrastructure.

Disadvantages:

· "Meme Coin" transaction volume is lower than Solana.

Since Blind is not a commercial project but just a weekend hands-on work, we do not need to consider decisions related to "potential financial returns," only to choose a solution that "does not make the development process too painful." In the end, we chose EVM. When developing blockchain applications, EVM is the most mature and best-experienced blockchain infrastructure, allowing us to advance development quickly, efficiently, and wisely.

Reusable Existing Infrastructure

After determining the chain, the next step is to find reusable SDK (Software Development Kit) or ready-made contracts to avoid coding from scratch. Especially in terms of smart contracts, it is preferable to use audited contracts to significantly reduce security risks.

Fortunately, there are abundant reusable resources in the EVM ecosystem, and we mainly have two choices:

· Develop based on DEXs such as Uniswap, building all admission control logic based on Uniswap V4;

· Develop based on existing issuance platform infrastructure (such as Flaunch's SDK), which has built-in features such as indexing, metadata uploading, issuance curve configuration, and presale stage management.

Once again, we choose the "path of least resistance": to develop based on Flaunch. This way, we can focus on the "social attributes of the issuance platform + frontend display" without wasting time and money on basic functions such as liquidity pool configuration, index infrastructure, and revenue sharing contracts.

"Since someone smarter than you has already done the job, why bother reinventing the wheel?"

Token Deployment Method

After determining the SDK, we need to decide "who will actually execute the token deployment," with two options available:

Option 1: User-initiated transaction for token deployment

· Need to develop a proxy contract to ensure that the issuance parameters chosen by the user comply with the platform's requirements;

· Need to find a way to track all deployed tokens in the existing Flaunch subgraph indexer.

Option 2: Users submit a "deployment request" to the backend, and the platform robot executes the deployment

· All tokens are deployed by the platform's owned External Owned Account (EOA) for easy tracking of all platform-issued tokens on the indexer;

· Ensures that all issuance follows standardized parameters.

We have chosen the "back-end service deployment" solution: this makes token tracking simpler, allows for stricter control of "deployment content and method," and provides room for future upgrades.

All tokens will be deployed by wallets controlled by the backend.

In essence, we are equivalent to a "slimmed-down Flaunch SDK," removing all unnecessary features and retaining only the part accessible through backend requests.

Social Data Collection

Next, the focus is on social features. We need to determine which data dimensions are valuable to the issuing platform. The ideal data combination should reflect both "user account status" and "user reputation."

Ultimately, I selected the following data dimensions:

· Followers Count (X platform API)

· Following Count (X platform API)

· Account Registration Duration (X platform API)

· Likes Count (X platform API)

· High-Value Followers Count (Moni API)

· Core Interactive Users Count (Moni API)

· Reputation Score (Ethos API)

· Content Virality Score (Kaito API)

This combination allows creators to prove their qualifications through multidimensional data without fully exposing their identities, enabling them to stand out.

Social Data Processing and Privacy Protection

When users register, we collect all of the above data, but how should we design the privacy aspect?

Our principle is "privacy-first by default": all data is not publicly disclosed by default to avoid leaks; users can independently decide whether each data dimension is public. In addition, users should be allowed to "blur display data" (e.g., actually having 43,000 followers, they can choose to display "40,000+"), providing semi-anonymous data reference.

Furthermore, should data processing rely on "centralized backend + HTTPS requests" or adopt complex zero-knowledge proof technology?

Our solution is a combination of both:

· All data is stored in a Postgres database, and the frontend directly retrieves information from the database via an HTTPS API. The presale admission control follows the process below:

· User wishes to participate in the presale → Requests an "Admission Proof" from the platform backend;

· Backend verifies if the user meets the creator's set threshold;

· Backend returns a signed message containing "User's Wallet Address + Expiration Timestamp";

· Smart contract validates the signature's authenticity.

Phase 2: Development Implementation

Before starting development, list out the required "Tooling":

· Railway (Backend Hosting): $20 per month

· Vercel (Frontend Hosting): $15 per month

· Cursor (Development Tool, includes Claude 4 MAX mode): $200 per month + $100 credits

· Website Domain: $30 per year

· X Premium+ (Account Membership for increased exposure + long-form publishing): $40 per month

· ChatGPT: Used for designing Logo + Branding, can be replaced with other familiar tools

· Total cost approximately $405 (assuming Vercel is not over the subscription limit).

Note: To speed up development, I actually used more Cursor credits than expected (enabling the MAX model). If speed is not a priority, cheaper models can be chosen.

Architecture Design

Most projects require 4 key components:

· Frontend: Hosted on Vercel (separate GitHub repository);

· Backend: Hosted on Railway (separate GitHub repository);

· Data Storage Database: Postgres database on Railway;

· Cache Database: Redis database on Railway.

In simple terms, Vercel is responsible for all frontend-related functions; Railway securely hosts "user-invisible" core services such as data processing, token deployment, API interfaces, information caching, etc.

Most backend architectures look like this (yes, the data is in a "ball").

Development Order

I always recommend starting by developing the core functionality, and leaving the frontend presentation for last.

For this project, the most core functionality (and the one that needs compatibility testing first) is token issuance.

Since we have determined that "Token deployment is done by a backend EOA," we can create a new git repository for the backend and start delving into the Flaunch SDK documentation.

The documentation outlines all currently available features in terms of launch configuration and even provides some code snippets for easy integration. They also offer some API endpoints for data retrieval and a subgraph that automatically indexes everything happening on Flaunch (including tokens launched from the Blind frontend).

1) Test Token Issuance Functionality

In the new backend repository, the first step is to set up the local environment to test if token issuance is successful through the SDK. We can start by writing a simple Node script, which can later be transformed into an Express server endpoint. By calling this endpoint and passing in the specified parameters, token deployment can be completed.

This step is actually quite simple and will likely only require one prompt and a small amount of debugging to get it done.

Moreover, the Gas fee for token deployment is less than $0.01! This means we can provide users with a completely free token deployment service.

2) Fetch Social Data

The second step is to develop another core functionality: social scoring. For all selected data dimensions, we need to review the documentation of each API and then create an endpoint in the Express server that will return all data based on the username. Afterwards, we can store this data in the Postgres database we created on Railway.

3) Registration Process

At this point, development will become slightly more complex, as progress needs to be made in the frontend repository simultaneously. We have chosen Next.js as the frontend framework because it has the best support for Vercel and supports middleware for implementing authentication.

In the registration process, we would like users to first link their wallet, then undergo identity verification through X, and finally register by calling our endpoint.

We start by reviewing the X authentication API documentation, implementing a simple registration page on the frontend, and creating a registration endpoint on the backend repository.

During the registration process, we also need to extract all data from step 2) and store it in the database, with an additional entry for a wallet address. All requests sent to the registration endpoint should undergo both X key authentication and wallet signature authentication to prevent identity spoofing.

Once everything is in order, we also need to add authentication to the token deployment endpoint so that only registered users can deploy tokens. For any endpoint outside the registration endpoint, we decide to authenticate only through wallet signature messages to avoid using X login every time.

4) Privacy Settings

After completing the registration flow and implementing data storage, the next step is to develop privacy settings:

· Create a data visibility settings table in the database (defaulting to all data being private);

· Develop a privacy settings modification interface callable by authenticated users;

· Write helper functions to support user-selectable data obfuscation;

· Develop a frontend privacy settings editing component.

5) API Audit and Optimization

Once the core service is ready, the following optimizations are necessary:

All server core functionalities are ready, and now we need to ensure that all endpoints use authentication when required and do not leak any personal information during public access. We can also use Redis caching to optimize certain APIs to avoid unnecessary server load. Finally, we added several APIs to retrieve user public profiles, token owners and their data, currency data, etc.

6) Frontend Development

Now is the time to create a visually appealing website. We start by defining a theme, the pages to be displayed, and begin removing the "private" sections. For displaying a custom-sorted token list and other data, we can rely on Flaunch's subgraph and filter based on the deployer's address, acting as our EOA. For the token details page, a quick way to display a chart is by embedding a simple DexScreener iframe.

7) Testing

Everything is finally ready. Test the user flow, deploy all content to Vercel and Railway, and share access with friends for feedback. The goal is to create an environment that is 1:1 consistent with the production environment.

8) Optimization Based on Feedback

This is the final step before going live.

Phase 3: Public Launch

The public launch is divided into two steps: branding and marketing.

Branding

I didn't mention branding earlier because it can be done at any time, but it's best to complete it before frontend development. Core brand elements (name, logo, color scheme, domain name) should follow the principles of "concise and easy to recognize."

One playful approach I personally like is "single-word naming + domain name combo pun":

· The project name is "Blind" (meaning "blind investment," hinting at users purchasing tokens with limited information);

· The domain name is goblind.xyz, cleverly combining the meanings of "go blind" (blind investment), "goblin" (adds a bit of whimsy), and "goblin'd" (goblinized);

· The color scheme deliberately chooses a bright and eye-catching light mode, paired with a "beast-like" design style, reminiscent of Braille documents, echoing the theme of "Blind";

· Logo design: Generated using ChatGPT (with the existing theme as a background prompt);

Marketing

It's time to let the world know about our MVP (Minimum Viable Product)! Typically, the best way to make others aware is not by straightforwardly informing them, but by creating confusion.

Confusion Marketing

Before the official promotion, it is advisable to ensure that the MVP functions are complete. It's best to start marketing a week before going live; this way, public attention can be concentrated within a week, making it easier to trend on social media platforms.

The core goal of this week is:

· Get more people to follow the project's X account and turn on notifications;

· Release vague teasers, meme content, but never explicitly reveal the project's functionality;

· Leave "clues" for netizens to spontaneously speculate in the comments section, letting them generate hype for you.

Vanity Metric: Making Users Feel Less Alone

Complementing the effective tactic of "Confusion Marketing" is the "Leaderboard"! People both want to "get ahead" and don't want to "get in too early." Your task is to "make the platform come 'alive' even before it goes live."

The "Registration + Leaderboard" activity has the following benefits:

· Early user registration guidance, traffic diversification to the website, testing system stability;

· Keep users continuously engaged with the project: "Are there benefits to early registration?" thus enabling account notifications;

· People like feeling "better than others": leaderboard rankings are easily shareable, allowing users to discover interesting data about their accounts;

· Facilitates the team's external promotion of "growth data."

Before Blind's launch, pre-registered users had already surpassed 40,000!

Note: If an "invite link" mechanism is added, the growth rate will be even faster.

24-Hour Countdown Teaser

It's time to unveil Blind's core functionality! When the article is published, let them know so they can have a specific time to look forward to. In the final 24 hours, focus on your speculation about Blind's content. 24 hours allow people in all time zones to be prepared.

Release Launch Article

At this point, users are all refreshing your X account homepage; it's time to publish the article! The article should detail:

· Blind's core functionality;

· Official launch time;

· Avoid being overly technical or listing all features, focus on conveying "development motivation," "core idea," and "project appeal";

If additional technical details are needed, a separate document can be provided outside of the article.

Phase 4: Official Launch!

The article should indicate that the "launch will occur 24 hours after the article is published." By this time, pre-registered users are ready and waiting for the token deployment. Next, we will:

· Switch all environments to production mode;

· Switch the deployer's EOA account;

· Stand by to address any errors that may arise during the launch (errors always happen).

Alright, it's the official launch!

Summary

When developing an MVP, always choose the "path of least resistance." There's no need to pursue perfection in one step; you can gradually iterate and optimize in a production environment. Seizing the moment is often more important than waiting for everything to be ready.

However, keep in mind: first impressions are crucial. The user's initial experience with the platform will directly influence their long-term perception of the platform. Don't expect the majority of users to pay continuous attention to "feature updates."

The development process of this side project has been very interesting. I have learned a lot and created a tool that people might use to issue tokens.

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