Poko Stories

The Problem We Set Out to Solve

India has a massive appetite for serialized fiction. But none of the existing platforms offered the right combination: quality-controlled content, a properly engineered reading experience, and a fair subscription model that worked across Indian and international payment rails.

We decided to build it ourselves. Poko Stories is Nexolve's own consumer product, designed, engineered, and operated entirely in-house.

Constraints

• Chapter gating had to be imperceptible, the access check had to complete in under 5ms so readers never feel a loading pause.

• Subscription billing had to work across Indian payment rails (UPI, cards) and international (PayPal), no single gateway covers both markets.

• Bookmarks needed paragraph-level precision, not page-level, to meaningfully restore the reading experience on return.

• OLED-optimised dark theme required careful colour choices, pure black backgrounds with contrast tuned for low-brightness night reading.

• Content pipeline needed editorial gating without developer involvement on every publish cycle.

How We Built It

Next.js + Supabase with a tightly designed Edge Function layer for chapter gating. Every technical decision optimised for reading immersion: sub-5ms access checks, paragraph-level bookmarks, and an OLED-black palette that makes late-night reading comfortable.

1. 1

   Editorial CMS with chapter staging

   Stories are authored in a private CMS and staged as encrypted draft chapters in Supabase Storage. Each chapter goes through editorial review before reader access is unlocked, ensuring quality control at scale.

2. 2

   Server-rendered chapter lists for SEO

   Next.js server-renders chapter lists and story metadata at build time for search engine discoverability, then hydrates into a fully client-side reading experience, combining SEO reach with app-like smoothness.

3. 3

   Sub-5ms chapter gating via Edge Functions

   Chapter access is gated by a Supabase Edge Function that verifies subscription tier against the chapter's plan before streaming content. Running at the edge, the check completes in under 5ms, invisible to readers even on mobile.

4. 4

   Paragraph-level smart bookmarks

   The Intersection Observer API tracks exactly which paragraph the reader is on and persists that position to Supabase on a debounced write. Readers are restored to mid-paragraph on return, not just the last page.

5. 5

   Dual-market subscription billing

   Razorpay Subscriptions handles Indian readers (UPI, card, wallet); PayPal Billing Agreements cover international readers. Webhook handlers update subscription state in Supabase in real time within seconds of any change.

Tech Stack

What We Learned

• Supabase Edge Functions are viable for sub-5ms access checks, invisible latency even on 4G.

• Paragraph-level bookmarking with Intersection Observer dramatically improves return-reader experience over page-level bookmarks.

• Dual-market billing (Razorpay + PayPal) is achievable with clean webhook architecture, subscription state synchronises within seconds.

• OLED-optimised dark theme is a genuine product differentiator for late-night mobile reading, session retention is meaningfully higher.

• Editorial control over content quality reduces subscriber churn from quality disappointment.