diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 1032454e0..4a965801c 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -229,4 +229,6 @@ yarn-error.log*
 !.vscode/settings.json
 !.vscode/tasks.json
 !.vscode/launch.json
-!.vscode/extensions.json
\ No newline at end of file
+!.vscode/extensions.json
+
+/backend/*
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index f552fb00e..ea576b51e 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -13,3 +13,7 @@ publish: build
 
 travis: build test
 
+.PHONY: backend
+backend:
+	bin/run_backend.sh
+
diff --git a/backend b/backend
new file mode 160000
index 000000000..3cd7f04d2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/backend
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Subproject commit 3cd7f04d26fed22f518db421e8b357c56a881b2c
diff --git a/bin/run_backend.sh b/bin/run_backend.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..a8aa0af2d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/bin/run_backend.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+
+set +exu
+
+function get_base_path(){
+  cd $(dirname $0) && cd .. && pwd
+}
+
+BASE_DIR="$(get_base_path)"
+BACKEND_DIR="${BASE_DIR}/backend"
+BACKEND_REPO='https://github.com/OperationCode/operationcode_backend.git'
+
+echo "Cloning backend repo into $BACKEND_DIR"
+git clone $BACKEND_REPO $BACKEND_DIR
+
+echo "Starting backend"
+cd $BACKEND_DIR && make build && make db_create && make db_migrate && make run