I'm Claudiu, a software architect turned founder.
After 7 years of freelancing and building enterprise platforms, I realized I was spending 20% of my time on "Shadow Admin" work—drafting contracts, compliance, and chasing invoices.
Standard Stripe payment links didn't work for me because of the 7-day authorization hold limit. My projects usually have milestones of 2-4 weeks, so the hold would expire before the work was delivered.
So I built Trustora. It's a B2B Operating System built with Laravel (backend logic) and Next.js (frontend) that wraps around Stripe Connect.
How it works technically:
It generates a legally binding contract (PDF) based on localized templates.
The contract creates a Payment Intent via Stripe Connect.
The funds are secured upfront but released programmatically only when the milestone is approved by the client.
We capped the platform fees at $150 (flat) to avoid the 10-20% cut that marketplaces like Upwork take.
I'm launching today and looking for feedback on the flow and the milestone logic.
Url: https://trustora.ro
We are also live on Product Hunt today if you want to support the launch: https://www.producthunt.com/products/trustora
Happy to answer any questions about the Stripe Connect implementation!