From concept to production in days with Shuttle

Using Rust and Shuttle to build a contractor marketplace without infrastructure complexity

"With Shuttle, I had our service deployed in 15 minutes. What would have taken us 2 weeks of infrastructure setup was done in half a day."Soren Bradley, Lead Developer, TriAcc

TriAcc is an oil and gas consulting company based in Alberta that helps smaller companies navigate regulatory compliance when they can't afford dedicated staff. As the industry evolved, TriAcc identified a gap in the contractor space - there wasn't a centralized platform where contractors could access deals, safety training, and industry information. They decided to build a B2C marketplace that would aggregate the best deals and resources, functioning like "Costco for contractors" while serving as a comprehensive information hub and trade association.

Up to 20x faster deployment
Reduced 2 weeks of infrastructure work to half a day with Shuttle
Zero infrastructure management
No Docker containers, database setup, cloud console management, or maintenance needed
Single-developer productivity
Achieved full production deployment with just one engineer

The Challenge: Infrastructure Complexity Blocking Innovation

With a single developer leading the technical implementation, TriAcc faced the classic startup dilemma: how to get to market quickly without getting bogged down in infrastructure complexity.

TriAcc chose Rust after experiencing frustration with runtime errors and unpredictable behavior in other languages. "I was just really annoyed when you think something's working, you have a test harness attached to it, and then all of a sudden you get a call at 3am saying the service is down," explains Soren Bradley, TriAcc's Lead Developer.

The bigger challenge was deployment. Soren had allocated two weeks to research cloud providers, set up environments, configure databases, build Docker containers, and create deployment documentation. This infrastructure work would consume valuable time that could be spent on core product features.

"I had allotted a certain amount of time to look into multiple different cloud hosting providers. I was playing around with DigitalOcean, setting up accounts, thinking about Docker containers," Soren recalls.

Solution: Choosing Shuttle to Eliminate Infrastructure Overhead

While researching Rust deployment options, TriAcc discovered Shuttle and decided to test it alongside other cloud providers. The difference was immediately apparent.

"I found Shuttle and decided to try it. Within 15 minutes, I had a working deployment." Soren explains.

Shuttle's approach eliminated the traditional deployment complexity:

No Docker containers needed: Instead of wrestling with Dockerfiles, Shuttle automatically packages your app.

Integrated database provisioning: Shuttle provisions and wires in a Postgres instance automatically

Zero infrastructure management: No AWS keys, IAM policies, VPC rules or security groups to configure

Single command deployment: "shuttle deploy" handles everything from build to production URL

Achieving 20x Faster Time-to-Production

The impact on TriAcc"s development velocity was immediate and substantial:

Deployment Speed: What had been budgeted as 2 weeks of infrastructure work was completed in half a day.

Cost Savings: The time savings translated directly to cost savings, freeing up nearly two weeks of development time for feature work.

Production Readiness: Most importantly, the simplified deployment enabled TriAcc to reach production when they otherwise might not have. "I don't think that we would be in production right now if we didn't go with Shuttle."

"Feature turnaround time is something I do not think about anymore," Soren notes. "Once I know it compiles and the shuttle run command works, I have a lot of confidence that when I push to our development environment, it just works."

Seamless Environment Management

TriAcc uses GitHub Actions for continuous integration with protected branches for dev and release environments. When code is pushed to the dev branch, it automatically deploys to their Shuttle development instance.

"The shuttle run command has caught anything that I've noticed being a problem in deployment. It's like the local dockerized instance," Soren explains.

Single-Context Development Experience

Beyond the technical benefits, Shuttle enabled TriAcc to maintain focus on what matters most - building product features rather than managing infrastructure.

"When I'm working with Shuttle and deploying something, my mind is still on the code. I spend most of my day figuring out how I'm going to implement features instead of having to manage deployment environments. My context is towards being a developer, not multiple different roles."

This single-context approach was crucial for a solo developer handling the entire technical stack. "I am able to just be the best developer I can be and then ship everything off to you guys. You guys handle it, it's in production, everyone is happy."

Technical Implementation

TriAcc's technical stack leverages Shuttle's ecosystem for their contractor marketplace platform:

01
Shuttle for deployment and infrastructure management
02
Loco.rs for full-stack Rust application framework
03
PostgreSQL for relational database
04
TypeScript/React for frontend development
05
Better Stack for monitoring and observability
06
Grafana for analytics and session recording
07
Stripe for payment processing via async-stripe
08
SendGrid for email services
09
Cloudflare for domains, CDN, and caching
10
Auth0 for authentication
11
Polars for high-performance data processing
12
Sea-ORM for database operations

TriAcc's Transformation

TriAcc's story demonstrates how Shuttle radically reduces infrastructure overhead, allowing organizations to accelerate time-to-market by freeing developers to focus on business logic rather than deployment complexity. By combining Rust's reliability with Shuttle's simplicity, TriAcc launched their production marketplace in days instead of weeks.