IRIS

Businesses want to implement AI solutions, but don't know where to find them; Agencies offer AI solutions, but don't know where to get clients. And IRIS is the marketplace connecting them both.

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(MVP STILL IN PROGRESS)

Inspiration

90% of founders and businesses fail because of one critical reason, they do not have a loyal customer base, and people don't actually need their product, they guessed what people might want and built what they thought people wanted. That combined with poor marketing is a recipe for a failed business. Whereas other people who are highly skilled and feel like their skills aren't being valued, can come on IRIS, build and get paid passively as well. The inspiration came from seeing so much wasted potential in the AI agency space and businesses desperately wanting to implement AI solutions and having no idea where to go. IRIS solves all these problems in one clean interface.

What it does

IRIS is a 2-sided marketplace that connects businesses and AI agencies + freelancers together in one curated platform, unlike any ever seen before-- A first of its kind-- IRIS helps builders earn passive income for their skills, unlike other freelance marketplaces where builders build the same solution over and over again to multiple clients, IRIS cleans it up by allowing builders to package their product and sell on the marketplace at a fixed price this not only allows businesses to access solutions quick fast and easy and cheap, as they are able to compare prices of other similar solution-products, but also eases up the whole process for the builders because they don't have to rebuild similar solutions over and over again for different clients. Thus creating a symbiotic marketplace where both builders (freelancers and agencies) and businesses benefit from each other in a loop. Beyond its transactional functions, Iris distinguishes itself by selling Innovation Certainty through a model of Economic Intent, where businesses are required to lock budgets in escrow upfront before a single line of code is written. The platform functions as a hub for Externalized Intelligence, allowing companies to gain market foresight by identifying the specific gaps and real-world pain points their competitors are currently failing to solve. Through Iris Magic Search, vague business frustrations are instantly transformed into AI-generated request boards, compressing the traditional idea discovery time from months of guesswork into minutes of data-driven action. For elite users, the Analytics Tab serves as "classified intel," revealing buyer intent data and demand forecasting to predict profitable niches up to 14 days before they hit the public feed. Ultimately, Iris addresses the 90% failure rate of startups by providing founders with a categorized map of validated problems, forcing a strategic choice: use the platform for competitive dominance or risk having your market share "eaten" by rivals who do.

How we built it

IRIS was built completely by myself, 75% of the way completed with the IRIS MVP, it was built using Next.js 14, Typescript, Vercel for deployment, Convex for backend, Clerk for sign up/sign in, groq for AI API, shadCN for UI, and finally Tailwind CSS and Stripe for payments. The stack is designed so that the frontend communicates directly with Convex via hooks (useQuery and useMutation) rather than traditional Next.js API routes Clerk provides middleware to protect specific routes, ensuring only authenticated users can access features like the dashboard or analytics. While the MVP uses the streamlined stack above, initial research also identified alternative industry-standard tools for scaling. Payments include Stripe Connect is recommended for managing the complex escrow system and payouts to builders

Infrastructure Alternatives: While Vercel and Convex are used for the MVP, the long-term roadmap considers AWS (ECS/Lambda) and Postgres on AWS RDS for more complex relational data and high-concurrency needs.

Challenges we ran into

There were multiple challenges we ran into especially because building a complex 2 sided marketplace by a non-technical founder, vibe coding the whole thing is extremely difficult, some challenges include, making sure everything was secure and good to go, easy to use, integrating payments for 15 percent commission on every paid transaction was tedious task, still working on it, and quality marketplace to ensure everything is running well and not being buggy. A bigger scale challenge we have yet to but will inevitably face is international tax compliance for cross-border escrow payouts often becomes a major legal challenge for global marketplace, so we are actively trying to find solutions for these pressing problems. Some solved, some in progress, but that's the beauty in building a business

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Out of many things to be grateful for we are especially proud of being able to build a functioning MVP ready to be shipped in a few months, with features and UI working fantastically. All while being a one-person business with no mentors or co-founders yet. But what especially motivates me is knowing that so many people will use our product and we'll help millions around the globe, and that's what keeps us going. We are proud to be building a product that will help millions in the best way possible and evening out the battlefield by not only helping big competitors but also SMB's who do not have access to great technology, all on one curated platform, IRIS.

What we learned

Through the development and strategy of Iris, several core lessons have been established regarding the modern freelance and startup economy. The most fundamental takeaway is that certainty is the ultimate monetizable product, far more valuable than AI features or simple job listings. We've learnt that building a platform that specifically solves this uncertainty gap that's stopping so many people from building successful businesses was necessary, instead of building for years, and getting no clients. We decided to flip the model, Clients come to you ask you what they want and you just build. Creating a more sustainable and flourishing ecosystem.

What's next for IRIS

Iris’s long-term goals are centered on shifting the global economy from a model of guesswork to one of absolute certainty Standardize Economic Intent: Become the universal platform where every building project is backed by verified, escrow-locked demand before work begins. Compress Innovation Time: Reduce the time it takes to discover and solve market gaps from months of trial and error to minutes of data-driven action. Build a Zero-Waste Ecosystem: Establish a marketplace where every builder has a guaranteed income pipeline and every business has the foresight to maintain competitive dominance.

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