Buurtly.com

Buurtly.com – The heartbeat of your hometown. This is your digital local hotspot, discover shop deals, events , and real-time updates from your town, all in one place.

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Inspiration

Buurtly (Buurt = Dutch for Neighborhood) was born out of care — for local shops, for real communities, and for everything that makes a town feel like home.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, people started to reconnect with their neighborhood. We went back to buying local. We realized that what we truly value isn’t always found in an online megastore — it's often just around the corner.

But most local businesses still struggle. Competing with big players is nearly impossible. Many shop owners lack the tools, time, or digital knowledge to connect online with their customers.

That’s why we created Buurtly — a platform that gives every town a digital heartbeat, and gives every local business a fair chance.

What it does

Buurtly is a digital community hub that connects people and local businesses in their own town.

  • 🗓 Discover local events
  • 🛍 See promotions from shops in your neighborhood
  • 🔔 Get urgent local updates (like road work, police checks or lost pets)
  • 🤝 Connect through a digital noticeboard

Each municipality has its own page, and residents can search for their town in seconds. Businesses can promote themselves easily, without needing any technical knowledge. It’s clean, joyful, and made to feel familiar.

How we built it

We built Buurtly with a mix of no-code agility, powerful dev tools, and AI support:

Platform & UI:

  • React with TypeScript
  • Styled using Tailwind CSS
  • Routing via React Router DOM
  • Multilingual support with i18next, react-i18next, and i18next-browser-languagedetector

Build & Deployment:

  • Vite for fast frontend builds
  • Hosted via Netlify
  • Domain managed through Entri

Backend & Data:

  • Supabase (PostgreSQL + Row Level Security)
  • Custom authentication with secure JWT-based login
  • Data modeling and permissions tailored to local municipalities and user roles

Icons & Voice:

  • Clean visual assets via Lucide React Icons
  • Voice features powered by ElevenLabs (future scope)

E-commerce & Payments (planned):

  • Stripe integration for premium merchant tools

Collaboration & Innovation:

  • Rapid iteration supported by ChatGPT
  • Version control and collaboration via GitHub
  • Initial MVP prototyped and designed using Bolt.new

Everything was developed with modularity and scalability in mind, ensuring Buurtly can grow town-by-town, and feature-by-feature — while remaining clear, joyful, and human at every step.

Challenges we ran into

  • Designing something that feels personal but is scalable for hundreds of towns.
  • Building our own authentication system (instead of using Supabase Auth), so we could control user roles, permissions, and visibility via RLS.
  • Keeping the platform simple enough for non-tech-savvy users — especially merchants who need to focus on their shop, not software.
  • Creating trust: some businesses have been promised “tech solutions” before — we needed to prove Buurtly adds real value without complexity.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Building a fully working MVP that’s fast, intuitive, and genuinely fun to use.
  • Designing a platform that anyone — from a café owner to a retiree — can understand and use.
  • Creating a digital space that respects local identity instead of replacing it.
  • Writing our own secure login flow and applying RLS policies that give users access only to what they need — clean and secure.

What we learned

  • Technology should never feel overwhelming — especially in a community project. Everything we built had to be clear, human, and joyful.
  • Most local shop owners just want visibility — not complexity. If we give them a simple way to reach their audience, they’ll use it.
  • The real magic happens in small details — like location detection, community-driven alerts, and giving a stage to the people who make our towns feel alive.
  • And most of all: people care about where they live. Give them a platform that reflects that, and they’ll show up.

What's next for Buurtly.com

Buurtly is just getting started.

  • We'll launch in a few selected towns to gather feedback.
  • We’re building a merchant onboarding tool with guided setup and tutorials.
  • We’ll add chat, push notifications, and verified municipal communication.
  • And we’ll begin conversations with cities, provinces, and communities across Belgium to expand, collaborate, and grow together.

Our goal?
To become the #1 local platform in Belgium — connecting neighbors, empowering shops, and turning every municipality into a vibrant digital village square.

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