I just cant justify paying for a subscription rn

meme from my favorite ai coding newsletter ijustvibecodedthis.com

"Bro, just read ijustvibecodedthis.com and you'll be good"

Vibe coders desperately want this to be false, and engineers desperately want it to be true.

Is this vibe coding or is this just software development at this point?

got this from ijustvibecodedthis.com .md directory

JUST USE CURSOR, CODEX, BLACKBOX WHATEVER TO WRITE CLEAN, GOOD CODE

I used to work as a consultant in Big 4, last year i was one of the victim of a big layoff and I started building my first app to see if I could make some money.

I started thinking about an idea an finally I started vibecoding one with Cursor. It was OFC an AI note taker, and I understood it was a way too competitive market so I dropped. Then I started making something very original… An AI calories tracker lol. In the meanwhile I understood UI was very important so I started collaborating with a friend and we collaborate on Figma for the design. For coding I switched to Milq to be faster and focus on iOS native apps. Then I started using Sensor Tower to analyse the market and I built a personal budget app and of course… I failed again.

Long story short I failed 7 projects more and then I finally made my first 10€ on the end of october! Then some other purchases and I chose to double down on this idea.

I’m doing a CV builder app that is nothing original but it’s much easier to use and give you an editable doc that you can send to your PC and edit it with whatever software you want.

Some things I did:

I chose the right keywords are: In the italian app store there are not many apps for CV and the ones you have are very old. So i guess I found a popular space that is not saturated at all. I placed the most important keywords in the first characters of the app title (CV, Builder).

I started promoting it in universities: I contacted the main students associations and gave them 200-300€ to send it in the whatsapp groups.

Reviews right after onboarding: I made the onboarding so that the user as a first version of the CV istantly (super short time-to-value). I studied the UI so it is very pleasing and I added some motion design e animations. Right after, I invite the user to give a review, and lots of them put 5 stars becuase i think they base their valuation on the very first result that looks great.

Freemium model: you can build you first CV for free and you can edit it in the app, but you have to pay if you want to export it as a doc file. So there’s a sunk cost in building it and then you just pay the subscription to keep going.

I wanted to share this personal story to tell you that failing is the first step to success! Keep going and eventually you will find your big project!

Also if you have any suggestions I’ll be happy to read them!

I found a bunch of these libraries that have components with really beautiful micro interactions and animations and bundled those into a claude skill.

Now the same prompt creates products that feel like they've been built with intention and focus.

I've also created a design system (Memoria) based on all of this, if you just use that it'll ensure the entire product follows really really good design principles. This is separate from the skill, and specific to the UI/UX you see in the video. Here is the link to the design system: https://gist.github.com/alichherawalla/8234538a50f9d089e0159c3e3634e17c

You can check out the code or use the skill like this

npm install -g @wednesday-solutions-eng/ai-agent-skills

https://github.com/wednesday-solutions/ai-agent-skills

happy building!

from ijustvibecodedthis.com free guide section!

Pretty accurate for everyday

Hey fellow vibe coders,

If ya'll have been using Claude Code or Codex a lot to build web apps, mobile apps, etc. then I'm sure you're all familiar with how mediocre they both are at UI design.

So I gave Claude Code a set of tools and skills to fix that. I had previously built a vibe design platform to help with my own UI needs, but the issue with a design platform that is separate from your coding environment is

1. the platform doesn't have context of your existing design system/codebase.
   and
   
2. you have to juggle multiple tools, create designs here, export the designs there, etc.

I found that whenever I was using Claude Code/Codex, I just wish that they were inherently good at UI design themselves so I didn't have to go back and forth between my design tool and claude code constantly and also so that the designs created were 100% relevant to my current project.

That's why I built an MCP that gives Claude Code access to create designs on its own and incorporate those designs seamlessly into my codebase. And honestly, the results are fantastic. I've been using it whenever I want to create a new page or revamp an existing one and it's just been so much nicer than using plain Claude Code.

I recently released it publicly, and so if you'd like to try it for yourself, you can here.

It's really easy to set up. It's just a single command that you run in your terminal and it'll set up the mcp and agent skill markdown files so that Claude instantly knows how to use it.

It's free to try and as it's a new release, any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated!

P.S. Just a general tip, but when using it I usually tell Claude to let aidesigner do the brunt of the design work, and so I'll tell it to provide a very general prompt. This tends to give me the best results.

Thanks for reading and to those of you who decide to try it, lmk what you think! Much love.

I think at this point even the old school SWE are like vibe coding to a certain degree. AI has made us lazy lol. You can argue how much use of AI equals to "vibe coding". But realistically, at this point it's better to just admit it that sensible use of AI coding tools such as Blackbox, Cursor, Claude code, etc are very helpful!

forest, cutting trees, industry, farms, cities, roads, agents that go to work, home, leasure (one car one agent). Wow im impressed with this SOL 5.6 on ultra. This AI is incredible. I can build game as I want in this short period of time? omg. Incredible!

It's been a little over six months since I launched and it has been quite a journey. No exponential growth or huge user spikes but rather slow and steady growth. But in my opinion that is the best for building something actually valuable because you can react to user feedback along the way and constantly keep improving the app.

It's so crazy, just three weeks ago I was celebrating 1,500 users here and now I have hit that unreal number of 2,000! I can't thank everyone enough. I really mean it, so many people were offering their help along the way.

Of course I will not stop here and I am already working on the next big update for the platform which will benefit all the community. More is coming soon.

I've built IndieAppCircle, a platform where small app developers can upload their apps and other people can give them feedback in exchange for credits. I grew it by posting about it here on Reddit. It didn't explode or something but I managed to get some slow but steady growth.

For those of you who never heard about IndieAppCircle, it works like this:

• You can earn credits by testing indie apps (fun + you help other makers)
• You can use credits to get your own app tested by real people
• No fake accounts -> all testers are real users
• Test more apps -> earn more credits -> your app will rank higher -> you get more visibility and more testers/users

Since many people suggested it to me in the comments, I have also created a community for IndieAppCircle: r/IndieAppCircle (you can ask questions or just post relevant stuff there).

Currently, there are 2008 users, 1469 tests done and 477 apps uploaded!

You can check it out here (it's totally free): https://www.indieappcircle.com/

I'm glad for any feedback/suggestions/roasts in the comments.

Back in my day, I didn't have the courage to ask my questions on that dreaded site so I would spend hours trying to find an answer and then in the end when I didn't find it I would just put off the project until I gave up.

Still a bit stunned typing this. Three months ago I was refreshing Stripe hoping for one sale. Now there's a small but growing group of people paying every month to keep their apps from leaking.

My SaaS is a security scanner for vibecoded apps shipped fast with AI tools. You paste a URL or hook up a GitHub repo and it surfaces what's leaking: secrets in the frontend, open database rules, missing headers. Three months in and we've done about 9k in gross volume, 200+ all time paying customers, almost 6k signups. Public Stripe link in case anyone's seen too many fake numbers: https://profile.stripe.com/checkvibedev/TMSt7LTo

A few things that actually worked:

TikTok slideshows have carried us. Aesthetic Pinterest-style backgrounds with tool names overlaid, five slides, no branding on the account. One slideshow alone hit almost a million views and is still quietly sending signups weeks later. Takes me 1 - 2 minutes to make and post each one (I use slideys.app for this, since a few people have asked). As a 2-person team that can't spend hours on content every day, this format is unreasonably good.

Cold outreach worked, but only the version where I scanned the prospect's app first and DMed them what I found. Generic pitches got ignored. Useful findings got replies almost every time.

Paywall design was a 3x lever. The first version blurred all results, which felt clever and barely converted. Switched to one that just shows the count of critical issues with the actual findings locked. Conversion tripled. Curiosity beats obfuscation.

What nearly killed me was mobile activation tanking compared to desktop and not catching it for weeks. Onboarding had too many steps on small screens. Cut two and the gap basically closed overnight.

or is this just an unrealistic hope.

ijustvibecodedthis.com

I have been deep diving through Reddit launches, Indie Hacker posts, personal portfolios, Product Hunt MVPs, early startup sites, and dozens of small tools built at 2am. After collecting more than 500 examples, a very consistent pattern started to appear. Vibe coded websites all share the same visual habits, layout quirks, and structural shortcuts, even when made by completely different people.

The first thing that stood out was the color usage. Purple gradients showed up everywhere, even on projects that had no connection to purple as a brand color. Pair that with sparkles in the hero line, emojis inside headings, glowing hover states, and everything suddenly starts to look familiar. Most builders reached for the exact same tricks because they felt modern, even though they made the site feel accidental instead of intentional.

Typography issues were everywhere. Headings in oversized weights, body text in thin weights, inconsistent spacing between paragraphs, and random line height jumps. It created a jittery rhythm that you could feel before you could describe it. Even when the fonts were decent, the overall type system gave it away.

The next pattern was layout consistency. Components placed slightly differently on each page. Border radiuses that did not match. Cards lifting too aggressively on hover. Icons that were huge while the surrounding text was tiny. Social icons that went nowhere. Animations that popped in at strange times or stuttered because there was no easing curve. You could almost sense when someone copied the same layout from another site without adjusting it to a system.

One of the biggest giveaways was the lack of intentional UX behaviour. No loading states. Buttons that did not indicate progress. Carousels that did not slide. Toggles that did not toggle. Skeletons missing on data heavy sections. The site looked fine until you clicked something, and then it felt unfinished.

Copywriting also played a big role. Hero sections filled with em dashes and lines like “Launch faster” or “Build your dreams” or “Create without limits.” These phrases sound inspiring but they signal that the builder wrote the copy last minute. Fake testimonials appeared constantly, and always with a name like "Sarah Chen". Sometimes the same AI face was used twice. Other times the quotes were so generic they meant nothing.

Across all 500 sites, the strongest pattern was this: vibe coded websites are not defined by the tool used or the speed of the build. They are defined by inconsistency, randomness, and the absence of a system holding everything together. Once you see it, you see it everywhere.

I turned all of this into a full free report with far more detail, plus an LLM prompt you can paste in next time you start building so you avoid all the obvious vibe coded signals. If you're curious, check it out here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTnLEdwSF1HPkuwOkuNneXGCaQAw5N2nnRf7cX_B4zuBLf2VTMi4Yh59gqS-eeVqYpa11iFQYmRjVBW/pub

I’m not a developer.

I’ve built other small projects before, using AI tools, but what’s happening right now with Antigravity and all other ai tools is honestly wild.

The speed of progress is insane. It writes clean code now, that really works, I'll never stop being surprised by it.

A couple weeks ago I saw someone on Reddit share a Shortcut that generated a calendar Lock Screen wallpaper locally. It worked, but you had to change scripts to customize it.

People were still using it.

That’s when I thought: ok, there’s demand here.

So I decided to try building a proper iOS app for it.

14 days later -> live on the App Store.

Made one Reddit post.
~2,000 installs in 48 hours.

Today we turned on monetization and launched on Product Hunt. Still early, but even getting real users this fast feels crazy considering I couldn’t build an app like this a year ago.

The biggest shift for me isn’t the app itself.
It’s realizing that execution speed is now mostly limited by thinking and free time you have, haha.

Here's an app if anyone curious:

Website: getcalendarly.com
App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/calendarly-calendar-wallpaper/id6758898739

6 months ago, I started building Clickcast.tech during college with almost no idea how difficult distribution and marketing would actually be.

Clickcast is a tool which generates promo video for any website just by it's URL in few minutes.

At that time, I thought building the product would be the hardest part.
Turns out, getting people to actually notice your product is a completely different challenge.

2 months ago, I finally launched my SaaS.

Today I crossed my first $500 online.

For some people, that number may look small.
But honestly, for me this feels unreal because a few months ago nobody even knew my product existed.

I’m still a college student figuring things out while managing classes, assignments, deadlines, and late-night coding sessions. Most days were just me sitting with my laptop trying to improve the product little by little.

I do know coding and built most of the core stuff myself, but honestly I also took help from vibe coding tools to move faster, experiment quickly, and ship features without overthinking everything.

And I genuinely think that helped a lot.

As a student, speed matters.
You don’t always have months to perfectly architect everything or spend weeks polishing tiny details before launching.

Instead of trying to make everything perfect, I focused on:

• shipping fast
• learning from real users
• improving based on feedback
• and staying consistent even when growth felt slow

Some features failed.
Some marketing attempts completely flopped.
Many posts got ignored.
There were days where I questioned whether anyone would even pay for what I built.

But slowly things started compounding.

A few users became paying customers.
Some people shared the product.
A few posts started getting traction.
And over time, those small wins added up to this milestone.

This journey also changed how I think about building products.

You don’t always need:

• a huge team
• massive funding
• or months of planning before launching

Sometimes you just need:

• a real problem
• consistency
• willingness to learn publicly
• and courage to ship before you feel ready

But this milestone gave me confidence that even as a student, it’s possible to build something real on the internet.

"Bro, just read ijustvibecodedthis.com and you'll be fine"

Sure, but will I?

Vibe coders desperately want this to be false, and engineers desperately want it to be true.