Bakchich is a creator monetization platform in Tunisia, think Patreon meets Twitch alerts, where fans support creators directly through tipping and live stream integrations. I was brought in to build and own Bakchich Store, a new product layer that would give creators another way to earn: selling merch and digital products directly to their audience.
| My role | Product Owner, Bakchich Store + Internal Tools |
| Type | Employee, full product ownership |
| Stack | WordPress / WooCommerce, then Medusa.js |
| Tools | N8N, Typebot, Mautic, Brevo, Appsmith, Chatwoot, Claude Code |
| Market | Tunisia, creator economy |
Part 1 · Bakchich Store
The Context
Bakchich had already cracked the core problem: how do small and mid-sized Tunisian creators make sustainable income beyond brand deals and YouTube revenue, which were unpredictable and rarely enough to live on. The tipping profile and stream alert system was working. Creators were getting direct fan support for the first time.
The Store was the next logical move. The platform was approaching saturation with the existing creator base in Tunisia, and merch felt like a natural adjacent revenue stream to offer. This wasn't a product born from a screaming user complaint. It was a deliberate expansion into value creators hadn't had access to before.
What I Owned
I built the Store from scratch and managed it end to end. The working dynamic with the CPO was test first, discuss later. I'd ship something, bring it to the table with results, and we'd decide together what to improve. No waiting for permission, no lengthy approval cycles.
WordPress MVP Designed and built the first version of the Store on WordPress and WooCommerce. Set up the product templates, checkout flows, and the initial creator onboarding process, including a form that connected creators with local manufacturers to speed up their merch creation.
PRD and Sprint Planning Wrote the PRD for Bakchich Store including epics, user stories, and tasks. Ran the full sprint cycle for the Medusa.js refactoring mission (sprint planning, sprint review, retrospective) across a team of 5: one senior developer, one UX designer, two junior intern profiles.
Medusa.js Refactor Led the migration from WordPress to Medusa.js to improve performance and set a better technical foundation for future features. The mission ran longer than planned. The technical complexity was higher than initially scoped, and the team was largely built on interns who had a hard end date on their availability. The lesson: intern-heavy teams need tighter upfront scoping and earlier escalation on technical unknowns.
Automation Layer Built internal automations using N8N, Typebot, Mautic, and Brevo to connect the Store with the broader Bakchich ecosystem. The most interesting one: a webhook that linked live store sales directly to Bakchich's existing streaming alert system, so when a fan bought something during a livestream, the creator got a real-time alert on screen. The Store wasn't a separate thing, it became part of the same growth loop that was already working.
Customer Support Led the Store's customer support operation using Chatwoot for live support, Scribe for creator guides, and Notion for internal ticketing.
The Moment That Changed Everything
We built the Store initially for merch. That was the plan. But while we were still convincing creators to go through the merch creation process, one creator showed up with something different: a guide he wanted to sell as a digital product.
I didn't turn him away. I took what he needed, adapted the product template, and updated the checkout flow to support digital delivery. That one product became the top selling item in the entire store.
In Tunisia, a COD country where people expect to pay cash on delivery for physical goods, someone bought a digital product with no physical delivery and no cash exchange. That was a real behavioral shift. We didn't just celebrate the sale privately. We hosted a webinar with that creator to show other creators exactly how he did it and why it worked. That turned one sale into a proof point that changed what the whole creator community believed was possible.
The Failed Rebuild
At one point we tried migrating the Store from WordPress to Next.js with a team of two interns and a UX/UI designer. The ambition was right but the timing and resources weren't. We didn't have the budget, the bandwidth, or the stability needed for a full rebuild at that stage.
The honest lesson: we should have taken that same energy and put it into optimizing what was already working. Rebuilding looks like progress but the user sees nothing while you're doing it. Shipping improvements to a working product almost always delivers more value faster.
Results
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Products on the Store | 400+ |
| Total sales generated | 🔒 Confidential |
| Users | 2,000+ |
| First digital product sale in platform history | Yes |
What I'd Do Differently
We relied too heavily on example-led growth, one success story, a webinar, word of mouth. It worked, but slowly. I would have set up a proper multi-channel acquisition system much earlier, UGC campaigns, paid ads, creator referral loops, and tested all of them in parallel rather than sequentially. We had a real proof point with that first digital product sale. We should have poured fuel on it faster and across more channels.
On the refactoring mission specifically: I would have scoped the technical unknowns more aggressively upfront and built the sprint plan around a team with more stable availability. Interns bring energy and are genuinely useful, but building a critical refactor timeline around people with a fixed end date is a risk that needs to be named early, not discovered mid-sprint.
Part 2 · Broader contributions at Bakchich
Beyond the Store, I contributed to several company-wide initiatives that touched product, operations, and growth.
Internal Dashboards Built dashboards using Appsmith to track platform-wide performance and manage creator payouts. Later rebuilt the internal dashboard from scratch using Claude Code as the tooling improved and the team's needs evolved.
Bakchich Wrapped Campaign Led the Bakchich Wrapped campaign highlighting the top 100 creator achievements for 2024. A community moment that drove visibility, creator pride, and platform engagement across the board.
Grants and Support Programs Successfully applied for and received support from the DOT Camp and Spark Grant programs on behalf of the company.
Consultancy Work Led the build of Caertia, a CRM for managing energy renovation projects, as part of Bakchich's consultancy offering. Built using Lovable, Strapi, N8N, and Cloudflare R2.