I Started Building a Premium Template Marketplace — Week 1 Progress, Stack & What's Coming

I've been thinking about this problem for a while.

Developers and businesses need quality websites fast — but the options
are either overpriced custom builds, outdated templates, or starting
from scratch every single time.

So I decided to build the solution myself.

Softchic is a premium template and ready-made website marketplace —
production-ready, built on modern stacks, designed to actually look good.
This is Week 1 of building it in public.

Why Softchic

The market exists. Developers need templates. Businesses need websites.
But most template stores are either bloated, outdated, or built on stacks
nobody wants to touch in 2026.

Softchic is different — every template ships with:

• Modern stack (Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS v4)
• Clean, production-ready code
• Premium design out of the box

The name went through 25+ candidates across multiple languages
before landing here. Clean, available, memorable — Softchic.

The Stack

• Framework: Next.js 14 (App Router)
• Language: TypeScript
• Styling: Tailwind CSS v4
• Components: shadcn/ui
• Payments: Lemon Squeezy (international) + Paystack (Nigeria)
• Email: Resend
• Deployment: Vercel

Design language: dark and premium — #0D0D0D background,
#2563EB blue, #F97316 orange accents.

Week 1 — What Got Built

✅ Waitlist page — designed and ready to deploy

✅ Navbar — responsive, dark-themed

✅ WaitlistForm — wired to Resend for email capture

✅ Brand system — colors, typography, full design identity locked

✅ Payment architecture — Lemon Squeezy + IP-based currency detection
via ipapi.co with PPP pricing for global fairness

The waitlist goes live very soon. Follow me here on Dev.to —
I'll drop the link the moment it's live. Early subscribers get first
access when the store launches.

The launch goal: 200 waitlist subscribers before opening the store.
That's the benchmark. No exceptions.

What's Next

• Waitlist page goes live 🚀
• Product listing page
• Template preview system
• First upload — a SaaS landing page template

The Real Talk

Building a marketplace from scratch is not a small task.
Every decision — pricing, stack, payment provider, niche — matters.

But the only way to validate any of it is to ship and let the market respond.

Planned launch: July 18–20, 2026.

Building something yourself? Drop it in the comments — let's connect.

Next post: How I structured the Next.js 14 project and what Tailwind v4
actually changes about the way you write styles.

The waitlist drops soon — you'll want to be early.

— Delight | Founder, Softchic

@ifehdelight on X