fr3n: Onboarding Flows, Email Systems, and RBAC Deep Dive
by Oskar Freye
Building the fan onboarding experience, a proper email template system, and role-based access control for a multi-tenant creator platform.
August was the month fr3n started feeling like a real product instead of a collection of features.
The Onboarding Journey
I built an OnboardingProvider that wraps the fan app and guides new users through their first experience. When someone lands on a creator’s subdomain, they get a tailored onboarding flow: sign up, complete their profile, get a free community pass, and land in the creator’s content feed.
The tricky part was the RBAC integration. When a fan joins, the system auto-assigns them the right role based on the community they entered through. I rewrote the fan auto-assignment logic twice before it handled all the edge cases — free vs. paid communities, multi-community fans, creator-specific permissions.
Email Template System
I extracted all email templates from inline strings into a proper core package. The email system now has:
- Merge tokens —
{{fan_name}},{{creator_name}},{{community_url}}get replaced at send time - Template renderer — generates HTML-compatible emails (HTML email is still pain in 2025)
- Welcome email builder — creators can customize their welcome email with a save-and-preview flow
- Improved logging and validation — because silent email failures are the worst kind of bug
The welcome image for the free community pass was a nice touch. It makes the “you’re in!” moment feel tangible.
Social & Profile
I added social media fields to the user model — links to Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. It’s simple stuff, but it matters. Fan profiles now feel complete, and creators can see who their audience is at a glance through the FanCRM component.
Content Engagement
The last week of August I shipped the content engagement system. Fans can now interact with content beyond just viewing it. The specifics are still being iterated on, but the foundation — the API routes, the database models, the UI components — is solid.
Heading Into Fall
September is about the money. Subscription notification emails, one-time payments for every product type, automatic tax handling. The fun stuff.
Version 0.9.x is getting close to a public beta.