The Parlor needed to exist, and it needed to get out there fast. When I started it I just had a background in design — no technical knowledge, no frontend, no backend. Since then I've harnessed Wix Velo's serverless functions and grown into full custom API endpoints and web applications that I've integrated into the basic foundation of what I built through Wix. It's still evolving.
The conventional wisdom says don't build on Wix if you're serious. The conventional wisdom hasn't tried to solo-found a feminist media platform while also editing, writing, designing, and running the business.
The Parlor needed to exist. Not in six months after a perfect technical spec — now. Wix offered something no other platform could at that moment: a full editorial CMS, hosting, payments infrastructure, and a serverless backend I could bend to my will, all without an engineering team.
The workarounds became features. The constraints became architecture decisions. What started as a fast launch became a fully custom platform — one that no template could have produced.
Wix Velo — the platform's serverless layer — gives you backend JavaScript files that run server-side, HTTP functions that expose real API endpoints, a live database, and a secrets manager. It's comparable to Netlify Functions or Vercel Edge Functions. Most Wix users never touch it. I built my entire platform on top of it.
Over time I built custom-coded elements across the site — authentication systems, subscription flows, paywalls, interactive embeds — using Velo to bridge gaps the platform wasn't designed to fill. Each constraint I engineered around is now a documented capability.
Wix provides authentication out of the box. What it doesn't provide is a system that bridges that authentication with a separate member portal, a living database, and persistent session state across custom-coded features. So I built one.
The authentication layer bridges Wix Auth with proprietary portal logic. When a member logs in, their session propagates through the portal, connects to the database, and determines what they can access based on their membership tier. It's not a plugin — it's custom architecture that happens to run on Wix infrastructure.
The member portal is a separate application entirely — its own codebase, hosted on GitHub and deployed on Vercel, then embedded back into the Wix site via iframe. This is a micro-frontend architecture: the portal is an independent app that lives inside the Wix shell, bridging back to Wix Auth and the live database through the custom authentication layer.
The Parlor isn't just a magazine you read. It's a platform you inhabit. The member portal is a separate application — its own codebase, deployed on Vercel, embedded back into the Wix shell — that gives subscribers a completely different experience of the publication from the inside.
The portal has its own navigation, identity, and logic. It knows who you are, what tier you're on, what you've saved, what you've read, and what's new since you last logged in. It's built to feel like a room, not a dashboard.
The goal was never a paywall with a members page bolted on. The goal was a community platform that happens to also be how you access the magazine.
The backend started on Airtable — the right call for speed. Each feature is a serverless Vercel function querying Airtable's REST API: filtered reads, PATCH updates for upvote counts and reply tallies, relational lookups across tables. It worked. As the platform grows in complexity — relational joins, real-time events, row-level security, performance at scale — Supabase is the natural next layer. The migration is underway, designed to be invisible to members.
Free editorial is how The Parlor grows. Readers find the reporting through search, through sharing, through organic trust that only comes from journalism that doesn't ask for anything before it gives. The Parlor's audience was built on free content — and that audience is the foundation everything else sits on.
Microtransactions exist because depth has value without making access a barrier. The $2.50 price point is deliberate — low enough to be an impulse decision, high enough to be meaningful at scale. Each tier serves a different reader relationship.
The print magazine is a fully designed artifact — full color throughout, with original commissioned illustration as a core part of the visual identity.
Print fulfillment runs through Peecho — a print-on-demand service. At current scale, inventory risk doesn't make sense. POD means print runs scale with demand, overhead stays low, focus stays on the editorial product.
Original reporting, essays, and human interest journalism. Always fully accessible — but not to everyone. Anonymous users must sign up for a free membership before accessing any content. The sign-up flow calls Wix Auth directly to create a session and assign the free tier. Once a member, all editorial is fully accessible with no gates.
Some articles carry premium media accompaniments — custom audio and video players with microtransactions built in. The reporting is free. Going deeper costs $2.50.
The same articles contained in the print magazine, presented as a fully designed digital experience. Always fully paywalled — free members hit the paywall at 10 seconds. Audio plays during the preview window, then the paywall interrupts both audio and scroll simultaneously.
Two paths forward: upgrade to a digital subscription for full access, or purchase the single article for $2.50. Neither path redirects away from the page.
The physical magazine. Full color throughout, with original commissioned illustration as a core part of the visual identity.
Fulfilled through Peecho on demand — no inventory risk, print runs scale with demand. A flipbook reader lets readers browse before committing. Print subscribers get everything in digital plus the physical artifact.
When a reader lands on a digital issue article, the audio — many recorded by the writers themselves — begins playing. They can read and listen freely for 10 seconds. Then the paywall fires.
It doesn't just block the content — it interrupts the audio and locks the scroll simultaneously. Both sensory channels cut off at once. The reader feels the absence of something they were already experiencing.
The print magazine needed to sell itself. So I built a complete conversion experience — preview, decision, payment — without the reader ever leaving the page.
The Parlor is not a finished product. It's a living platform that evolves with the publication's needs and my own technical growth. Parts of the site are still under construction — intentionally. Each rebuild is better than the last.
The current migration from Airtable to Supabase is underway — moving the backend infrastructure to a more robust, scalable foundation while keeping the frontend experience continuous for existing members.