Welcome to my personal blog. I’m Coen ten Thije Boonkkamp, and this where I want to feel free to share any and all thoughts. Law. Code. Startups. Wins (and failures). I want to write about it all.
Built a legal tech startup as a student and discovered I didn’t want to work in Word for the rest of my life. However, I went broke and spend two months on social welfare. I landed a job at the premier Dutch trust office at that time—a character-building chapter I can’t legally talk freely about, but let’s just say: not birthday-party material.
Tried my hand at another startup—this time with UtrechtInc. Great community and solid teachings for most startups. Could I have gotten more out of it? Probably. But then COVID hit, the world flipped upside down, and I found myself staring down bankruptcy. Again.
Hit reset and went back to my fallback: legal work. Joined Liance and thrived, advising cutting-edge life science projects and leveling up professionally. It was the launchpad I needed, but now I’m doing my own thing again, working on some amazing projects like the 100+ study of Amsterdam UMC, the Alzheimer Genetics Hub, and the DEMENTREE biobank.
Tip Still offering well-reviewed legal advice to select life science projects. Got something cool? Let’s talk.
Oh, and programming. Almost forgot to mention that. I discovered the Swift programming language early on and realized it was perfect for writing legal business logic. Naturally, I followed the classic advice: “Launch an app quickly!” So, I built a legal tech app… only to learn that no one uses mobile apps for legal tech. Like, seriously, it’s just not a thing normies do.
So, I pivoted to a website. But here’s the catch: I’m stubborn. I didn’t want to write HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. I wanted to write Swift. Turns out, writing an elegant website in Swift is hard. Did I mention I love elegant code? It’s like art to me, and writing elegant code is anything but easy.
Thankfully, the folks at PointFree came to the rescue. I’ve been a subscriber since 2018, and their content is pure gold. Their approach is provably the best—clean, functional, and elegant. But there’s a catch: aside from their (open-source) website, there are no good examples of Swift websites in action.
Building a website in Swift? It’s fun. It’s clean. It’s also painful. Inspired by the functional elegance of PointFree, I set out to build coenttb.com using Swift and Vapor. The journey? Rewarding—but full of headaches. Dynamic front-end? Still a work in progress (any Swift WASM wizards out there? Let’s talk!). Writing elegant, maintainable code? Harder than it looks when you’re swimming against the HTML/CSS/JS tide.
So here’s the deal: I’m open-sourcing coenttb.com.
Why? Because starting from scratch is overrated, and I’d rather help others skip the headaches I’ve endured. Whether you’re a Swift nerd or just curious about using Swift for web dev, this is for you.
Here’s what I hope to do:
Show how to structure a Swift Vapor website elegantly.
Save you the trial-and-error grind.
Get feedback to make it even better.
Swift for web dev isn’t the easy path, but it’s a rewarding one when done right. If you’re on this journey too, check out the code, learn, fork, contribute—whatever floats your boat.
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If this post resonates with you, you’ll love my newsletter. I go deeper into legal tech, Swift/Vapor tips, and lessons learned from the grind.
Here’s what you’ll get:
Legal tech insights you won’t find anywhere else.
Tips for building in Swift/Vapor without losing your mind.
Honest takes on the grind, the wins, and the lessons learned.
The occasional deep dive into life sciences and the future of tech.
No fluff, no spam—just real, actionable content for builders, thinkers, and creators.
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