Over the past few weeks, I worked on building my first reusable SaaS starter kit using Next.js, Prisma, JWT authentication, and Lemon Squeezy billing.

The goal was simple:

Stop rebuilding the same foundation every time I start a new SaaS idea.

But while building it, I made a lot of mistakes — and honestly, those mistakes taught me more than the successful parts.

Here are some of the biggest lessons I learned.

1. I Tried to Build Everything at Once

At the beginning, I wanted the starter kit to include:

authentication

billing

teams

admin dashboard

analytics

notifications

multi-tenancy

Basically… everything.

That was a mistake.

I realized very quickly that trying to build every possible feature slowed me down massively.

The turning point was when I focused only on the essentials:

auth

dashboard

billing

clean architecture

Everything became simpler after that.

Lesson:

A smaller finished product is better than a huge unfinished one.

2.…