Vibe coding our way

I’m Inès, co-founder of Scabld, an AI app generator we’re about to launch, letting you build apps (IOS, Android, Web, Desktop) with flutter code you can export and tweak. Picture this: you say “make me a time apps tracker” or “a Picture This app for sketches,” and boom, real-time preview, flutter mobile app code, all in minutes.

We’re dropping it soon with a free trial, and I’d love your take. But before I dive into Scabld, let me rewind, because this isn’t our first rodeo, and the flops taught us more than the wins ever could.

The entrepreneurial grind: failing forward

Like a lot of you, we’ve got a graveyard of side projects that never took off. My co-founder and I, two stubborn dreamers, have spent countless nights hammering out ideas that sounded brilliant at 2 a.m. but flopped by daylight. One was a half-baked mobile app idea he coded late at night: a social platform for niche hobbyists. Cool concept, zero traction, turns out, our “genius” UI was a usability nightmare, and we had no clue how to market it. Another was a time apps prototype, a slick little productivity tool that tracked your hours across devices. It crashed harder than my Monday motivation, sync failed, bugs galore, and we’d bitten off more flutter development than we could chew.

But here’s the silver lining: those personal projects didn’t die. They sneaked into our work, like ghosts of code past haunting us with lessons. Every failed app taught us something, how to develop apps faster, what users actually want (spoiler: not our over-engineered daydreams), and why flutter code is a multi-platform game-changer. That hobbyist app ? It showed us UX matters (more) than features. The time apps wreck? It forced us to master flutter mobile app debugging. A 2024 Stack Overflow survey found 68% of devs struggle with launch timelines, our flops were living proof, but they also lit the path.

Being entrepreneurs means eating failure for breakfast and still showing up. Indie hacking isn’t about flawless launches, it’s about grit. We’ve had days where we questioned why we even bother, staring at a screen full of red error logs. But watch it : those flops were our proof of work. Every crash, every “this sucks” moment built the muscle we needed for Scabld.

Failure’s a brutal teacher, but it’s the best one we’ve got. And honestly, if you’re not failing, are you even trying?

When vibe coding meets Flutter: Scabld’s origin story

Fast forward to today, and Scabld’s our swing, me and my co-founder’s brainchild. It’s an AI app that lets you create mobile apps, web apps, and desktop apps with natural language prompts. Think “build app” but faster, powered by Claude AI and flutter code. You describe your idea, “a time apps suite that syncs my life” or “a Picture This app to doodle on photos” , and Scabld churns out a flutter mobile app preview live. Tweak it with a few prompts, export the flutter code, and it’s yours. We’re not talking toy projects here, it’s for real apps that sync across platforms.

Why Flutter ? Flutter development is our jam. One codebase for IOS, android, web, and desktop ? Yes, please, it’s a dream for indie hackers juggling limited time. Chef’s kiss, it’s saved us hours on every mobile app we’ve prototyped. I’ve used it to vibe code everything from time apps to random other app ideas, like a plant scanner that flopped but taught us rendering tricks. Flutter’s fast, flexible, and open-source, meaning you can build apps without a VC budget. Alibaba’s shipped flutter mobile apps to millions, proof it’s not just for scrappy founders like us.

Then there’s vibe coding, coding by feel, not syntax. It’s like telling a sous-chef, “whip me up something tasty,” and they deliver. Traditional coding’s a grind, line after line of flutter code, hunting bugs like it’s a scavenger hunt. Vibe coding flips that. With Scabld, you say what you want, and the AI app generator does the heavy lifting. We prototyped a task app in 10 minutes, rough, sure, but it ran. Compare that to weeks of manual develop apps work. It’s less “debug hell” and more “damn, this works.” Scabld’s our bet that indie hackers crave that workflow, fast, intuitive, and a little chaotic, just like us.

The spark ? My co-founder and I were tired of seeing good ideas stall out in dev purgatory. We’d vibe coded enough apps to know the pain points, too much setup, too little progress. Scabld’s our fix : an AI app that gets you from “what if” to “holy crap, it’s real” without drowning in code. It’s not about replacing devs, it’s about giving us a head start.

Lessons from the trenches: the indie hacker hustle

Building Scabld as a duo wasn’t all smooth vibes.

Hard truth ? Develop apps with users in mind, not just our egos. We once vibe coded a time apps tool so feature-packed we couldn’t explain it ourselves. Users didn’t care about our clever widgets, they wanted simple. Scabld’s free trial is our fix : you can build app ideas and tell us what sucks. We’re all ears, indie hackers don’t survive without feedback loops. Gartner predicts 70% of new mobile apps will lean on AI tools by 2027,our trial’s your chance to vibe code ahead of the curve.

Entrepreneurship’s a rollercoaster. One day, we’re hyped to create mobile apps in minutes, our task app proto felt like magic. The next, we’re questioning everything, and we’re back to square one. What keeps me sane (besides my dog, Panda, who’s basically our mascot)? Knowing every flutter mobile app we vibe code, even the duds, builds toward something bigger. My co-founder’s the same, he’s the calm to my chaos, and together we’ve turned flops into fuel. Scabld’s not perfect, AI’s still a wild co-founder, spitting quirks like a diva, but it’s our step toward democratizing apps for all of us.

What’s next? Your turn

We’re dropping Scabld soon at scabld.com. Free trial, transparent pricing, and a chance to build apps without drowning in flutter code from scratch. My co-founder and I are pumped to see what you vibe code with it, mobile apps, time apps, whatever.

Here’s what I’d love to hear:

What do you think of vibe coding as an indie hacker tool? Game-changer or gimmick? Ever reused a dead side project in your work? (Mine keep haunting me!) What apps would you create mobile app-style with Scabld?

Hit me up here or on X, I’m @InesBillieres and let’s talk. Indie hackers thrive on feedback, right? Follow us at @scabldai too.

Let’s keep vibing, failing, and building together.