🛍️ Vemgram: Building in Public
I am building Vemgram and sharing the entire journey here – progress, decisions, half-baked ideas, and everything in between.
Vemgram is an online platform to connect retailers with manufacturers in India. Think IndiaMART, but with better UX.
Website: vemgram.com
🧱 Build Log
Updates won't be daily as I'm not working on this full-time.
🔸 February 17, 2026
- Published the first version live on the website vemgram.com.
- Used Dokploy to deploy on a Hetzner VPS, earlier, I was thinking of using Laravel Forge but wasn't aware that's a paid product, and it doesn't make sense to use that at this point of time.
- As multiple people told, I am also thinking about changing the name "Vemgram" but only if I find a good alternative. I've spent several hours on it already, but nothing clicks, so far.
🔸 February 16, 2026
- Clearing all dummy data from the site, and then getting ready to make the v1 live. Still have a lot of small things to do, but will keep making changes once the site is live.
- Hosting this on a Hetzner VPS by using Laravel Forge.
🔸 February 09, 2026
- The new design is almost complete with the following pages:
- User's dashboard
- Public manufacturer's profile
- Location pages and other archive pages
- Admin dashboard (to check and approve businesses)
- The website still has a lot of dummy data so slowly putting things together for the MVP launch.
🔸 January 27, 2026
- The previous design wasn't approved by Bikash, so re-doing the whole design thing from the scratch. We will only keep the light mode on the site, at least for now.
🔸 January 19, 2026
- Started working in Laravel, have set up the project, and started working on it
- Using SQLite for the project, because why not! And when the project becomes big, it will be a nice problem to have.
- Have created the dashboard and now working on the authentication, will keep email and social login (Google, etc.)
- Planning to make the basic homepage live in 1-2 days, and will now put a basic lead capture form until the website is completed
🔸 December 24, 2025
- Thinking of using the domain
vemgram.com that I have from earlier, and have also got the .in that I'll probably redirect to the .com
- Finalized Laravel as the framework after researching multiple options (but don't ask me why)
🔸 December 22, 2025
- Created a detailed written plan for the app in a Google Docs
- Discussed this with Amit, Bikash, Rohit, and a few other people as well
- Researched different tech stack options, as I don't want to use Next.js for this (my other Next.js projects have become very complicated in the past)
📦 Parking Lot
Ideas and suggestions I'm considering for some day.
Physical mail verification: Send physical mails to manufacturer addresses for profile verification, similar to how Google AdSense does it in India.
Role switching (community idea): Buyers can post requirements on the app, and verified sellers send quotations — like government tender work.
📡 Public Updates
