Transactions page for active and completed transactions
Rating and review after returning
QR Code to be scanned when returning
Main borrowing / lending page
Onboarding page explaining trust system
Create a borrow post

Borrowism: A Secure Peer-To-Peer Borrowing System

Inspiration

“Sorry, anyone got a MacBook charger???” Messages like this flood student group chats daily. We noticed students constantly need items they don’t own, often just for short-term use. Things like calculators for exams, tripods for projects or kitchen tools for one-off events. Buying them is wasteful, costly and time-consuming for students’ already packed schedules, yet the peers living around us already own these items, sitting unused, if only we knew....

Our solution? Borrowism. A peer-to-peer borrowing platform exclusively for NUS students. With Borrowism, borrowers are able to find essentials on short notice within a trusted community and lenders can enjoy peace of mind with NUS email verification, ratings and accountability.

Lessons Learned

As a first major project, building Borrowism pushed us far beyond our comfort zone of just writing code. We learned:

1. Full-Stack System Design

Gained hands-on experience connecting frontend and backend systems:

Designing user flows (login → browse → request → borrow)
Structuring relational databases for users, items and transactions
Handling authentication securely

2. Real-World Product Thinking

Unlike school assignments, this project forced us to think about:

User trust (How do you ensure items are returned?)
Incentives (Why would someone lend their belongings?)
Design flow (What each step of the borrowing and lending process are)
Edge cases (Expired listings, inactive users)

3. Modern Web Development Tools

We worked with:

Next.js for scalable frontend architecture
Supabase for authentication, database, and real-time updates
Render for deployment

This helped us understand not only how modern applications are built and shipped but also the many considerations and trade-offs involved, from user trust and edge cases to scalable architecture and rapid deployment.

How the project was built

Step 1: Planning the Core Features (What do we NEED?)

First, focus was placed on creating a minimal viable product (MVP) with:

User authentication (NUS email-based)
Item listing and browsing
User rating and review system

Step 2: Frontend Development (How will it look?)

Using Next.js + TypeScript + Tailwind CSS, we

Designed a clean UI with a top navigation bar and side panel
Built reusable components (cards, forms, search bar)
Ensured responsiveness and usability

Step 3: Backend & Database (How will it function?)

Leveraging Supabase, we

Set up authentication (NUS email-based login)
Designed tables for:
- Users
- Items
- Borrow transactions
Implemented logic for:
- Removing expired listings
- Linking borrowers to item owners

Step 4: Deployment (How will it run?)

We deployed the app using Render, which allowed:

Fast iteration
Continuous deployment from GitHub
Easy environment variable management

Challenges Faced

1. Challenge faced collaborating simultaneously

Due to unfamiliarity with Git, Github and Render, pulling, committing and pushing were not second nature to our development process, leading to much time spent on merge conflict resolutions.