The problem
The-State started in November 2025 as a platform for university students: lecture PDFs with timed quizzes and screenshot protection. That version depended on paid Cloud Functions. In June 2026 I rebuilt it on the same Firebase project as a sales CRM that anyone can try, and that must never run up a bill.
What I built
A complete demo CRM: a dashboard with key figures and charts, a deals pipeline as a kanban board, contact and company tables with editing, and an activity list for tasks. A demo account opens it instantly (username demo, password demo12345), and a seed script fills it with realistic sample companies, contacts, deals and activities.
Decisions
- Free tier by design. It uses only Firebase Auth and Firestore. The security rules validate every field and size, and every change must also update a per-user usage record that enforces a short cooldown, so a bug or a bored visitor cannot burn through the free quota. A daily write budget is shown in the app.
- Load once, update instantly. Data is read once per session and edits appear immediately while they save in the background.
- Custom controls. Every native select, date input and checkbox was replaced with accessible, keyboard-friendly controls built on Apple's Human Interface Guidelines, with light and dark themes and reduced-motion support.
Built with React 18, TypeScript, Vite, Firebase and Recharts.
Where it stands
Live at the-state.temrevil.com as a public demo; source on GitHub.