# Build brief — a focused alternative to WithJuly

> **Verdict:** Not faithfully · **Buildability:** 6/100 · **Category:** Creator Commerce
> **Source:** https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/withjuly
> Independent editorial assessment from Can It Be Vibe Coded? Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or derived from WithJuly. Verify current pricing and capabilities before acting.

## Context

**WithJuly** — A platform for creators to find, price, negotiate and manage brand sponsorship deals.

The software layer here is thin: a media kit page, a deal pipeline, some invoices and reminders. The part that matters is on the other side of the table, meaning actual brand relationships, inbound demand, and rate data from deals that already closed. An agent can build you a very tidy place to track sponsorships you do not have yet. It cannot tell you what a 40k-subscriber tech channel really gets paid for a 60 second integration, and it cannot make a marketing manager email you. Build the tracker if you want, but do not confuse it with the thing being replaced.

This brief describes a focused, single-operator replacement for the part of WithJuly that is genuinely reproducible. It is deliberately narrower than the product it replaces, and it says so in writing. Build the useful core; do not pretend to have rebuilt the rest.

## What you are building

A local dashboard with a public media kit page, a deal pipeline board, rate notes, deliverable checklists and payment reminders.

- Sell digital products from your own pages with payments handled by a provider.
- A responsive interface with real empty, loading, success, and error states.

## Requirements

### Functional

- Node 20 and a local Postgres or SQLite file.
- A domain or subdomain if you want the media kit page to be public.
- Your own audience numbers, pulled or pasted in manually.
- Optional: a Stripe or invoicing tool for the actual money.

### Non-functional

- Accessibility: semantic markup, labelled controls, visible focus, and reduced-motion support.
- Security: server-side secrets, validated input, and no credentials in the client bundle.
- Reliability: retries with backoff on external calls, and a clear failure state when a provider is down.
- Portability: the operator can export their data and leave without losing it.

## Implementation brief

Build a local-first sponsorship deal tracker for a single creator. Consolation build: this replaces the paperwork, not the deal flow.

Stack, no substitutions:
- Next.js 15 App Router, TypeScript, Tailwind
- SQLite via Drizzle ORM, file at ./data/deals.db
- No auth, no accounts, no telemetry, no external SaaS calls
- Runs with: npm install, npm run db:push, npm run dev

Data model:
- brand: name, contactName, contactEmail, notes
- deal: brandId, status (inbound, negotiating, agreed, in-production, delivered, invoiced, paid, dead), platform, deliverables (text), grossFee (integer cents), currency, usageRights (text), exclusivity (text), agreedAt, dueAt, invoicedAt, paidAt, notes
- rateNote: platform, audienceSize, deliverableType, feeCents, dateClosed, source (mine or reported), notes
- asset: dealId, label, url

Pages:
1. /pipeline: kanban board by deal status, drag to move, inline edit of fee and due date. Show totals per column in currency.
2. /deals/[id]: full deal detail, deliverable checklist stored as JSON, timeline of status changes, asset links.
3. /rates: table of rateNote rows plus a simple median and range calculator filtered by platform and deliverable type. Make it obvious that this is your own data only and that an empty table means you know nothing yet.
4. /money: unpaid deals sorted by days overdue, computed from invoicedAt, with a copy-to-clipboard chase email drafted from a template.
5. /kit: a printable one-page media kit. Audience numbers are typed in by hand and stored in a single settings row. Include a static export script that writes ./out/kit.html for hosting anywhere.

Explicitly out of scope, do not build: brand discovery, any marketplace or matching, contract e-signing, payment processing, OAuth to YouTube, TikTok or Instagram, benchmark data you did not enter yourself.

Include seed data with three fake brands and six deals across statuses. Put any future API keys in .env.example, none are required to run. README: one paragraph on setup, one paragraph stating plainly that this tracks deals and does not source them.

## Delivery standard

- Inspect the repository first, then write a short implementation plan before writing code.
- Deliver the smallest complete end-to-end workflow first; every primary control must work against persisted data.
- Use real validation and storage; never substitute fake dashboards, decorative controls, hard-coded success states, or mock integrations.
- Include responsive layouts plus genuine empty, loading, success, validation, and failure states.
- Keep secrets server-side in environment variables, provide .env.example, and never commit credentials or user data.
- Add structured logs around every external call and return actionable errors without leaking sensitive details.
- Write unit tests for the core logic and one automated test of the main user journey.
- Finish with a README covering setup, architecture, data location, backups, tests, deployment, and known limitations.

## Acceptance criteria

- [ ] A clean install starts the app using only the README and .env.example.
- [ ] The primary journey works from first visit through saved result, reload, edit, export, and deletion where applicable.
- [ ] Invalid input, missing configuration, provider failure, and an empty database each have a usable state.
- [ ] The interface works at 390px and 1440px, is keyboard navigable, and shows visible focus on every control.
- [ ] Tests, type checking, linting, and a production build all pass with no ignored failures.
- [ ] No part of the interface implies a live integration, security guarantee, or scale capability that was not actually built and verified.

## Non-goals

Do not build these, and do not claim to have replaced them:

- Inbound brand demand: no deals arrive because you built a pipeline.
- Benchmark rate data from real closed deals across comparable creators.
- A human or process pushing negotiation and follow up on your behalf.
- Brand-side trust, contracting and payment collection when a sponsor goes quiet.
- Deal terms review, exclusivity and usage-rights sanity checks.

## What you still own after launch

- Run migrations, backups, restores, and dependency updates.
- Test the critical journey after every model, API, or hosting change.
- Monitor failures and fix the edge cases a first prompt will miss.

## Risk

**Operational risk.** The code is achievable; dependable data, integrations, and ongoing operations are the real cost.

Editorial confidence in this assessment: low. No reviewed project implementation is linked yet.

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Generated by [Can It Be Vibe Coded?](https://www.canitbevibecoded.com) · Full report: https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/withjuly