AlphaBits Venture Partner
Sourcing.vn
A sourcing hub and agency for Vietnamese manufacturing. Buyers can search verified factories on the hub themselves, or let the Sourcing.vn team handle sourcing, factory audits, QC inspections before shipment and project management. It also covers talent and tech, with zero commission. We are the technical co-founding partner and platform architect.
Trust, privacy and many kinds of user
A foreign brand looking for a factory in Vietnam needs to know who it is dealing with, and it needs its designs and RFQ details kept private.
Buyers, suppliers, talent and project managers each need their own view of the same platform. The team wanted to build that without separate frontend and backend teams or a heavy cloud setup.
A gateway in front of a workflow engine
The platform is a Hono gateway on Bun with a Node-RED workflow engine behind it. The gateway signs users in and checks each request, then passes the user's ID, role and email to Node-RED in headers.
That keeps back-office automation, such as alerting staff about a new RFQ on Slack and by email, separate from the pages buyers and suppliers use. The team can change a workflow without touching the site.
Platform at a glance
How the platform works
A workspace for each role
Each role signs in to a portal that shows only its own tools and data. Better Auth handles sign-in with email one-time codes and magic links.
RFQs with files and messages
Buyers submit RFQs with attachments and can message the team about them. Each submission triggers a Node-RED hook that alerts staff, and people on the team put together the supplier shortlist.
Encrypted configuration
Secrets are stored in a dotenv-vault file encrypted with AES-256-GCM, so the repository holds no plaintext credentials.
HTML over the wire
Pages are rendered on the server and made interactive with HTMX, Alpine.js and Bulma. There is no bundler and no single-page app to build.
Gateway architecture
Why a small stack matters
A secure B2B marketplace with several kinds of user is often staffed with separate frontend, backend and DevOps people and run on a pile of cloud services. That means more coordination and slower releases.
Sourcing.vn runs from one codebase as two systemd services on SQLite. Releases stay quick, and the server bill stays small.
Technical details
- Gateway
- Hono on Bun; Sourcing Portal on port 10000, Events Portal on port 11002
- Workflows
- Node-RED on Node.js, behind the gateway, receiving user details in request headers
- Sign-in
- Better Auth with email one-time codes and magic links
- Secrets
- dotenv-vault, encrypted with AES-256-GCM
- Database
- SQLite through bun:sqlite
- Frontend
- HTMX, Alpine.js, Bulma
- Hosting
- Two systemd services
Live platform
Explore Sourcing.vn
Search verified Vietnamese factories on the hub, or send an RFQ and let the team build the shortlist.