Work

Hovenier.nl

I've been working on hovenier.nl since early 2019, building and running the platform end to end.

The project started as a simple directory for landscaping and gardening businesses and gradually evolved into a much more complex system through experimentation, iteration, and long-term use in a real market.

I'm responsible for the full technical realization and day-to-day operation of the platform. In practice, this also meant taking ownership beyond development alone: validating ideas, improving performance and conversion, and deciding which directions were worth pursuing and which were not.

Platform evolution

Over the years, I built and experimented with a range of features and sub projects, including:

• A plant guide with a structured database of popular garden plants, built from scraped source data and enriched with custom written content
• Inspiration pages that grouped portfolio images from business profiles into themed collections (for example front gardens, low maintenance gardens, and garden structures)
• Supporting content such as informational pages, blog posts and a garden calender.
• Ongoing layout, performance, and conversion optimization across the site
• Extensions to the original directory functionality, including improved portfolios, reviews, and profile management
• A WooCommerce based dropshipping webshop focused on garden plants (later discontinued)
• A product comparison tool that aggregated offers from multiple webshops, allowing visitors to find the lowest price and click through to the relevant shop via affiliate links (later discontinued due to limited commercial value and SEO trade-offs)

Many of these experiments were deliberately stopped again when they proved ineffective or misaligned with the long term direction of the platform.

Lead marketplace

The core of hovenier.nl today is a fully custom built lead and quotation marketplace, which has been under continuous development since early 2020 and is comparable in scope to other established platforms in this space.

This system was built from scratch and includes, among other things:

• A comprehensive request form supporting multiple job types, optimized for conversion over the years
• Automated validation of incoming requests, including email confirmation, phone number checks, duplicate account detection, and safeguards against repeated submissions of the same request over time
• Manual moderation workflows supported by validation warnings and review tooling
• Searchable request overviews for businesses, including distance and category filtering, saved searches, and quick access to relevant requests
• Configurable notifications for businesses when new matching requests become available
• A credit-based payment system through which businesses pay to respond to leads within the application. Credits are purchased through payment provider Mollie.
• Multiple ways for businesses to respond to requests, such as expressing interest or initiating direct contact
• Messaging between customers and businesses through the platform, with reminders and follow-ups
• Automatic credit refunds when customers do not respond
• Weekly, personalized email digests based on preferences and activity
• Account settings and email preferences
• A comprehensive admin backend for handling workflows, monitoring activity, managing data, and viewing or exporting reports

The system has been in use since 2020. During that time, I have continuously maintained, refactored, and adjusted it as requirements changed and insights from practice became clearer.

Other projects and platforms

In addition to hovenier.nl, I have worked on various other projects and platforms, sometimes with a business partner, sometimes alone.

Examples include affiliate-driven websites, lead generation websites, data-heavy applications, and consumer-facing tools. Some of these projects are still active, others were discontinued due to market conditions or strategic decisions.

My responsibilities in these projects included:

• Application logic and data modeling
• Integrations with third-party services and APIs
• Background jobs and automation
• Processing and normalizing data
• Ongoing maintenance and implementing improvements

Working on my own projects over longer periods of time has taught me a lot about what does and doesn't work in practice.

Client work

In addition to my own projects, I have also worked on websites and web applications for clients.

This work mainly involved websites and web applications, both built on an existing CMS and fully custom built. Clients were mostly small businesses and organizations. The focus was typically on reliability, clarity, and practical use, rather than on design or marketing.

These were often long-running collaborations rather than short, one-off projects.

Open source

Between 2015 and 2017, I developed and maintained the Laravel and Lumen modules for the Codeception testing framework.

Codeception didn't have a module for Laravel 5 at the time. I built one, and later also one for Lumen. I collaborated with other maintainers, kept the modules up to date with new framework versions, and handled issues.

Closing note

The common thread across these projects is long term responsibility. Building systems that are used in practice, maintaining them over time, and being deliberate about what is worth building and what is not.

For more context on how I approach projects and collaboration, see the How I work page.