#Vouchernaut

Started in 2016 and run alone for six years, then rebuilt from an empty repository into fifteen live products in 22 days.

22Days to fifteen products
Vouchernaut rebuilt alone in 22 days3 outcomes
Doug Silkstone

The one-man band

On 20 September 2026, the Vouchernaut repository was an empty starter. Twenty-two days later, on 12 October, vouchernaut.com had fifteen live products on it, from checked codes for 995 UK shops to a platform for brands with its own Shopify app. Behind them were 772 commits and about 530,000 lines of code, 145,000 of them tests.

I did every job myself: product, design, engineering, operations and selling. Agents did most of the typing while I wrote the specs, made the calls and checked the work. This is how that went, and why I came back to a site I started ten Black Fridays ago. There's a longer version too, with every feature and decision in it: the 40-page case study as a PDF.

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vouchernaut.comThe case study (PDF)
#typescript#nextjs#hono#postgres#llms#architecture#zerotoone#designsystems#attribution#ecommerce#growth
The Vouchernaut homepage on 26 November 2020: dark plum, a search box for UK stores and the astronaut mascot with a pink V on his chest
Vouchernaut on Black Friday eve 2020, from the Internet Archive. The astronaut with the pink V is the one who became Vinny.
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Doug Silkstone

Vouchernaut

UK shopping guide, comparison tools and brand platform

Founder & sole operator · Rebuilt alone in 22 days with AI agents

Read the full case study

Vouchernaut is a UK shopping guide with checked codes for 995 shops, a shop, comparison tools for phones, broadband, energy and airport parking, What's On listings, guides and a platform for brands. The founder and sole operator role covered every job: building and running the original site alone from 2016 to 2022, then rebuilding it at vouchernaut.com in 22 days in 2026.

  • Rebuilt Vouchernaut from an empty repository to fifteen live products in 22 days: 772 commits and about 530,000 lines of code, 145,000 of them tests.
  • Wrote the specs and made the product calls while AI agents did the typing across 203 Claude Code sessions, with every result checked against its spec before it went live.
  • Shipped store pages for 995 UK shops, a shop of 5,220 products with price watch, a phone finder, a broadband checker, an energy comparison, 21,087 What's On listings, airport parking, discount hubs and group cashback.

…

vouchernaut.comHow Vouchernaut was rebuiltThe Vouchernaut case study (PDF)
#typescript#react#nextjs#nodejs#hono#postgres#llms#architecture#zerotoone#designsystems#attribution#seo#growth#ecommerce
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Stack
  • Next.js
    The site, the editing studio and the brand console
  • Hono
    One API behind every surface, with Payload CMS
  • Postgres
    One database for stores, products and offers
What shipped

The outcomes this chapter is on the CV for.

  • 1Fifteen live products in 22 days
  • 2One person in every role
  • 3Original: 250K sessions a month at 90% margins
Read the full entry
Highlights

What the role actually involved day to day.

  • 1Founded and operated
  • 2Rebuilt with AI agents
  • 3Every job, one person
Talk to Doug