The Swedish candy cart

Natalie and I had the concept, a Piaggio on order, and Sweetish as the candy supplier. I started needmynectar.com in Next.js the same day. The roadmap was live before the website was.

I picked up the Piaggio. Tesla hitch installed. First meeting with Fulton Commons scheduled. I logged 164 reference images from Tukxi to the repo for brand direction. The physical cart was real.

I filed the commissary permit application as FSP-MFC-25-017. The regulatory path was in motion. The cart could not operate without it.

I rebuilt the full website in the Hester design system. Booking page, Find Us with map, gummy bear favicon, candy-themed animations. The headline: Catch me if you candy. The site went from placeholder to real.

ACHD approval landed. The cart was legal. I did another round of UI polish — rounded hero, Our Story section, wavy marquee, Pittsburgh skyline cart image.

Jules confirmed the Strip District lot for February 13-15. The launch date was set. I placed the Sweetish order: 302 lbs, 16 varieties. The cart had a date.

Insurance locked. I integrated the Square Web Payments SDK. The cart could legally operate and accept payment online.

I rebuilt the booking flow — date-first UX, availability check, Resend confirmation emails. Branded email templates. Live Google Calendar integration for the weekly schedule. The business ran on code before it ran on candy.

First popup. Strip District. We ran out of candy.

Alexa's professional shots replaced the placeholders. The scalloped navbar. The cart on the homepage. The site finally matched the real experience of the cart.

Real booking form. Apple Pay. Address autocomplete. Square invoicing. The operational bottleneck between interest and commitment was gone.

482 lbs of candy incoming. Five new varieties from Sweetish added to the lineup. The cart was growing faster than expected.

Monthly subscription bags with branded packed-and-shipped emails. Nectar stopped being a cart you'd see at a popup and became something that arrived at your door. The cart found a recurring model.

Online candy ordering live on needmynectar.com. Pick your mix, check out, it ships. Revenue no longer required the cart to be physically present.

Shippo labels, auto-tracking, ingredient cards with full allergen data, a packing admin UI. The fulfillment pipeline could run without manual steps.

Square-backed digital gift cards live in a day. Purchase online, receive by email, redeem at any event. Someone else's celebration could now bring a new customer to the cart.

Jenis, Izzy, and Ella came on. I built the crew app for them — shift claiming, animated chooser, earnings per event. The cart could run without me at every event.

I filed the permit application as FSP-MFF-26-059. Full documentation package — equipment disclosure, site plan, photos, application. The second cart entered the regulatory system.

Boost system for high-demand events. Crew claim elevated pay rates locked at claim time. Square timecards stamped automatically at 11pm. The busiest events now reliably get the best crew.

The form wasn't earning trust fast enough. I ran four prototypes — native calendar input, progressive disclosure, celebratory date confirmation, anchored CTA — and chose the best of each. Crew architecture followed: unified email templates, confirm creates shift, auto-notifies. The ops event type landed the same week.

Order 6 went out: 285 bags, 939 lbs, due by May 14. I cleared the online catalog of out-of-stock items and regenerated product imagery with transparent backgrounds. Spicy category added. Ingredient label cards built for Candy Club boxes. New varieties live on the pick & mix.

Full business snapshot live at needmynectar.com/stats. Popup history, unit economics per channel, margin breakdown — 50–65% on popups, 35% online. Private events visible for the first time. Everything in one place.