Post

I just finished my 100 hours project and wanted to share it with the 100Devs community. DevLeads (devleads.site) is a complete, self-hosted lead management system I built specifically for freelance web developers. It handles everything from initial contact to final payment.(cont.) #100Devs #webdev

(cont.) When you self-host, you own your data. No monthly SaaS fees eating into your profit. No vendor lock-in. No worrying about some company changing their pricing or shutting down. You deploy it once with Docker and it's yours. #100Devs #webdev

(cont.) The documentation walks you through it step by step, even if you've never touched Firebase or MongoDB Atlas before. I wrote it assuming you're starting from scratch because I wanted anyone to be able to use this. #100Devs #webdev

(cont.) Leads come into your system in a few different ways. If someone contacts you through one of the web form components on your site, their information automatically gets added to your dashboard and triggers automated email notifications through Nodemailer. #100Devs #webdev

(cont.) Once a lead is in your system, you've got all their contact info, business details, what service they want, their budget, etc. You can track them through your pipeline with statuses like new, contacted, in progress, closed/won, closed/lost. #100Devs #webdev

(cont.) When you're ready to send a proposal, contract, or invoice, you use the built-in form builder with a Markdown editor. It comes loaded with professional templates for contracts, proposals, invoices, cold calling scripts, cold emails, etc. #100Devs #webdev

(cont.) The system uses variable substitution, so you select the lead, pick your template, and it automatically fills in their name, business name, address, project details, pricing, payments, remaining balance, etc. from their lead record. Then you export it as a PDF or markdown. #100Devs #webdev

(cont.) The Resources page has curated links organized by category. Business tools, design resources, development docs, hosting platforms. For example, OpenSign is linked there for e-signatures. It's a free, open source tool and an awesome resource. #100Devs #webdev

(cont.) As the project moves forward, you track payments. Each time they pay you, you log it and DevLeads automatically calculates what they've paid and what's still owed. You get revenue trends, conversion rates, and interactive analytics on your dashboard. #100Devs #webdev

(cont.) The Business Finder might be my favorite feature. You can search for businesses in a specific location that might need your services, and it gathers their contact information into organized hitlists. You can pull up to 1000 businesses per search. #100Devs #webdev

(cont.) Want to do outreach to every coffee shop in Denver? Every dentist in Phoenix? You can build those massive lists with phone numbers, addresses, and websites. When you see which businesses have websites and which don't, you know immediately who needs one built. #100Devs #webdev

(cont.) The next version is going to be a multi-tenant SaaS with more features and improvements, but this current version is completely free, open source, and yours to use however you want right now. #100Devs #webdev

(cont.) I didn't just build DevLeads though. I wanted to create a toolkit for anyone trying to freelance and get their business up and running quickly. #100Devs #webdev

(cont.) I've also built a number of framework agnostic web components that you can check out in my GitHub repo. github.com/devmansam777 #100Devs #webdev