Refery

refery.net

The idea for Refery came from a statistic I read somewhere, that people are around 90% more likely to buy something recommended by a friend than from any ad. Influencer marketing already leans on that, but only for people with large audiences. Everyone else trusts their friends just as much and gets nothing for it.

Refery flips that around. Companies upload campaigns, you share a link with people who might actually care, and if they take the action the company paid for (a signup, a purchase, a download), you get a cut in real money. Not platform credits, not discounts, actual cash.

I spent about six months and 400+ hours on this, and it grew into one of the largest codebases I have ever written solo, somewhere north of 30,000 lines. It was also the project that taught me the most about designing for a three-sided marketplace where advertisers, sharers, and end users all need different things to show up.