Building eCourses: A Community‑First LMS SaaS (and Why You Should Build in Public)

I’m building a Learning Management System SaaS called eCourses, designed specifically for small communities and independent educators who feel priced out or over‑engineered by existing platforms. This post is the first in a series where I’ll walk through the architecture, decisions, and “lessons learned” from shipping an LMS from scratch — in public, open source, and on a tight budget. Why I Built eCourses Most LMS platforms are either: Too expensive for solo creators and small communities. Too complex for simple “course + modules + lessons + live sessions” workflows. Too rigid to let instructors experiment with their own teaching style. I wanted something that: Feels native to communities (not just single instructors). Scales technically and financially under $10/month at reasonable load. Lets me experiment with API design, caching, and complex state in a real product context. That’s how eCourses started — as a personal itch, and now as a real product and portfolio project. What eCour