Why You Should Always Plan for Growth — Even if You're the Only Developer

When you're building a product as a solo developer, it's easy to assume you'll always be the one maintaining it. But if there's one thing I learned during my time at Holiday Caravans Direct (HCD), it's this: building for growth isn't about company size — it's about mindset.

From the beginning, I made choices that assumed the platform would eventually scale — both in terms of users and contributors. That decision paid off repeatedly.

Don't Optimise for Now — Design for Later

It's tempting to take shortcuts when you're working alone. No one's going to see your internal method names or your magic number-laden pricing logic, right? But technical debt doesn't care about team size — it'll slow you down all the same.

Instead, I built HCD with:

• Modular boundaries between features like bookings, pricing, and availability

• Clear API contracts that decoupled front end from back end

• Consistent naming and structure, making future onboarding easier (even for future me)

Anticipate Change, Even If It's Not on the Roadmap

At HCD, feature requests often came out of left field: "Can we add pet fees?", "What if they book for 10 days instead of 7?", "Can we block specific dates for maintenance?"

Because the system had been designed to separate concerns and treat rules as configurable logic, I could say yes — often with only minor changes.

That flexibility didn't come from clever code. It came from thoughtful architecture.

Leave Room for Other Developers

Even though I was the only dev, I built the codebase as if someone else might join. That meant:

• Avoiding hardcoded assumptions

• Writing comments where logic wasn't obvious

• Documenting setup steps and deployment instructions

It sounds small, but these habits make a world of difference when projects grow.

Growth Isn't Just Traffic

Planning for growth doesn't just mean handling more users. It means preparing for:

• New developers

• New business models

• New integrations

• New ownership

In fact, that last point came true — HCD was later positioned for handoff and sale. The fact that it was modular, understandable, and stable made that process smoother.

Final Thought

Being a solo developer doesn't mean thinking small. Quite the opposite — it gives you the freedom to architect for the future without the overhead of big-team politics.

HCD taught me that even when you're the only person writing code, you should build like you're not. Because one day, you won't be.