Bank of Gaga: Keeping Family Loans Friendly
Replaces awkward IOUs and messy spreadsheets with clear loan contracts, automatic math calculations, and friendly reminders.
Bank of Gaga Dashboard Screenshot
Take a screenshot of your active application on your Mac (e.g. using Cmd+Shift+4) and save it as bank-of-gaga.png inside the /public/images/ folder to replace this placeholder!
Project Tech Stack
What I Built
Bank of Gaga is a family loan management portal. It lets family members set up real loan agreements with custom amortization rates, automatic payment schedules, and clear dashboards. It removes the awkwardness from lending money by letting the software handle the math and reminders.
The app is a complete subscription SaaS. It uses NextAuth for secure logging, Drizzle to manage database schemas, and Stripe webhooks to manage monthly ($7.99) and annual ($59.99) subscription billing.
The Core Concept
Lending money to family members is common, but spreadsheets are poorly suited for the human side of tracking. I built Bank of Gaga to professionalize family loan agreements while keeping them friendly and accessible.
The application leverages a double-sided UI tailored to different demographics:
- High-Legibility Lender Dashboard: Tailored for older lenders ("Gagas") who value explicit UI cues, featuring a simplified layout, high-contrast states, custom Date Change modals, and easy SMS invitation sharing.
- Free Promissory Note Generator: A public lead magnet utility that dynamically compiles printable family loan contracts in PDF format, helping bootstrap traffic and capture email leads.
- Mortgage-Style Overpayments: Extra payments apply directly to principal reduction and shorten the term, rather than shrinking future monthly slots into weird fractional amounts (resolved based on direct feedback).
- Growth & Referrals: Mutual referral rewards and extended 30-day trial periods ensure that families get a full payment loop to experience the product before committing.
Key Technical Features
Amortization & Recalculation Engine
Calculates real-time principal/interest schedules dynamically, cleanly handling early payments and displaying a "Final Payment 🎉" badge on completion.
Manual Confirmation Loop & Plaid waitlist
Lenders review pending payments with a dashboard card, backed by a 24h cron nudge. Includes an in-app "Join Plaid waitlist" CTA to measure demand for full integrations.
GA4 & Attribution Funnel
Tracks subscription starts on `/billing/success` via Google Analytics, logging exact signup sources (Google OAuth vs. Email) to a Postgres metadata table.
Email & SMS Reminder Pipelines
Triggers daily checks via cron jobs, using the Resend API to alert borrowers of upcoming due dates and notify lenders when confirmation is needed.