This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by gbae420
I’ve been building BowlingAlleys.io — a nationwide bowling alley directory — out of Replit, Firebase, and way too much coffee.
No investors.
No big team.
Just me, spending about $500 a month between tools, emails, and time, trying to build something meaningful in one of the most old-school industries out there.
🎯 The Mission
Bowling alley websites are notoriously bad.
Half of them are just images. No schema. No metadata. You can’t even tell if they’re open or closed without calling.
So I’m building the structured data layer for bowling — real pricing, hours, leagues, and experiences — all indexable and easy to update by the alley itself.
Basically, I want Google to finally understand bowling.
📊 This Week’s Progress
- 57.7K impressions
- 450 clicks
- Average position: 14.6 (up from 17.6 last month)
- 2,000 active users (last 90 days)
- Average session duration: 5m 34s
All organic.
Every uptick in clicks or impressions is the direct result of better page structure, improved internal linking, and adding schema to the right pages.
It’s slow SEO — but it’s real SEO.
🏆 6 Alleys Signed Up (2 on Deck)
Right now, six bowling alleys have officially joined the platform.
Two more are “on the hook.”
And I’ve got a meeting this week with a local alley to talk through what features they actually need.
It’s not glamorous. But it’s working.
Most owners just want:
- To update pricing themselves (no webmaster needed)
- A way to show when lanes are full
- Real traffic insights without complicated dashboards
Every conversation helps me refine what to build next.
💸 What $500 a Month Actually Buys
People keep asking what I spend the money on.
Here’s the honest answer:
- Replit hosting — $20/mo
- Google APIs + Firebase — $30-50/mo
- Domain + tools + outreach emails — $100-150/mo
- My time + caffeine — priceless
That’s it.
No ad spend, no subscriptions to fancy tools.
Just me and a few cloud functions keeping this thing alive.
🧠 Why I’m Sharing This
Because most of the internet only shows you finished stories.
Not the messy middle — the part where you’re half-confident, half-terrified, and just trying to build something that matters.
If someone out there is building their own weird little niche project, I want them to see this and think:
“Okay, I’m not crazy. This grind is part of it.”
This project reminds me why I fell in love with coding — solving something real, not just building for clout.
🔮 Next Up
- Pricing 2.0: allow owners to change rates daily or hourly
- Founding Partner badges: early alley recognition
- CTR Optimization: “cosmic bowling” & “bowling alleys near me” are ranking but underperforming
- Goal: hit 10 claimed alleys by month-end
🧵 Final Thoughts
Hard work doesn’t guarantee success.
But it guarantees progress.
And right now, I can feel the momentum — impressions rising, owners responding, bowlers clicking.
I’ll keep sharing these updates here on dev.to because they’re real.
If you’re building something niche too, drop your link below. Let’s root for each other.
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by gbae420
gbae420 | Sciencx (2025-11-03T12:43:01+00:00) Building BowlingAlleys.io — $500/mo, 6 signed, 2 on deck. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/11/03/building-bowlingalleys-io-500-mo-6-signed-2-on-deck/
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