The honest breakdown of shipping SomeYum, TellMeMo, VibeCheck, and GrowthForge as a weekend vibe coder.
Originally published on Medium
I have a full-time job. Director of Tech Program at a gaming company, 13+ years in. Meetings, roadmaps, cross-team coordination - the usual corporate chaos. I'm not a developer by trade anymore.
But on weekends, I vibe code.
Between November 2025 and February 2026, I shipped 4 apps to production. Real apps with real users. Not tutorials, not toy projects - products with landing pages, app store listings, and people actually using them.
Here's how that happened, and what I learned.
The Setup
I'd been watching the AI coding space for a while. Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot - tools that let you describe what you want and get working code back. The "vibe coding" wave, as Andrej Karpathy called it.
My background is technical - I started in support, moved through IT roles, eventually became a PM and then director. I can read code, understand architecture, and debug when things break. But I hadn't shipped personal projects in years because the time investment never made sense. Evenings and weekends aren't enough to build something meaningful.
Or at least, they weren't.
The 4 Apps
ð SomeYum - Recipe Swiper
The problem: "What should we cook tonight?" - the question that kills 30 minutes every evening.
The solution: Tinder for recipes. Swipe right on recipes you like, left on ones you don't. AI learns your taste. Now with meal planning and grocery lists.
Tech: Flutter, 10K+ recipes, AI-powered recommendations.
What surprised me: This was the most fun to build. The swipe mechanic is satisfying in a way I didn't expect. 52K+ daily swipers now, which still feels surreal.
ð¯ TellMeMo - Meeting Intelligence
The problem: I sit in meetings all day. Someone asks a question, and instead of answering from our own docs, we say "let me get back to you" and create a follow-up. Multiply that by 8 meetings a day.
The solution: AI that sits in your meeting, listens, and automatically answers questions from your uploaded documents in real-time. Also tracks action items with owners and deadlines.
Tech: 100% open source. Self-hostable.
What surprised me: This one came directly from my day job pain. The "let me get back to you" problem is universal - every PM I talked to immediately got it.
ð VibeCheck - Security Scanner
The problem: We're all vibe coding now. But AI-generated code has patterns - it takes shortcuts, skips input validation, uses string concatenation for SQL queries. The code works, it just isn't safe.
The solution: Paste your GitHub repo or app URL, get a security scan focused on the specific vulnerabilities AI tends to introduce. Get fix prompts you can paste right back into Claude Code.
Tech: Static analysis + AI pattern matching for common AI code smells.
What surprised me: This one resonated with developers more than anything else I've built. Security is the elephant in the vibe coding room that nobody wants to talk about.
ð GrowthForge - Personal Development
The problem: I tried every habit tracker and goal-setting app. They're all either too simple (just checkboxes) or too complex (enterprise OKR tools). Nothing connected goals â habits â reflection â progress in one flow.
The solution: A personal development system combining OKRs, habit tracking, journaling, AI coaching, and progress analytics. Gamified with XP and achievements because apparently I need that dopamine hit.
Tech: iOS native, AI-powered coaching.
What surprised me: Building a habit tracker while simultaneously trying to build the habit of shipping products is peak irony. But it works.
How AI Made This Possible
Let me be real: I could not have built these without AI coding tools. Not in 3 months. Not as a weekend project. Probably not at all, given my current skill set and available time.
Here's what my typical weekend coding session looks like:
- Saturday morning, 7 AM. Coffee. Open Claude Code. Describe what I want to build in plain language.
- Iterate. "Make the swipe animation smoother." "Add error handling for the API calls." "The grocery list should group items by store section."
- Review. Read the generated code. I can't write Flutter from scratch anymore, but I can read it and spot issues.
- Test. Run it, break it, describe the bug, get a fix.
- Ship. By Sunday evening, there's a working feature.
The key insight: AI didn't replace my skills - it amplified them. I still need to know what to build, how to architect it, and what "good" looks like. The AI handles the syntax and implementation details I'd otherwise spend weeks relearning.
But here's the part nobody talks about enough: AI-generated code has blind spots. It writes code that works but isn't always secure. It takes convenient shortcuts. It doesn't think about edge cases the way a senior engineer would. That's literally why I built VibeCheck - I needed it for my own projects first.
What Worked
1. Scratching my own itches. Every app solves a problem I personally have. SomeYum = dinner decisions. TellMeMo = meeting overload. VibeCheck = security concerns. GrowthForge = personal growth tracking. When you're your own user, product decisions are easy.
2. Shipping ugly, then iterating. First versions were rough. SomeYum v1 was basically a recipe list with a swipe gesture bolted on. But it was live, people used it, and feedback shaped v2.
3. Not quitting my day job. This sounds counterintuitive for an indie hacker story, but my full-time role gives me perspective. I see how teams actually work, what tools they need, where the gaps are. TellMeMo exists because I sit in too many meetings. VibeCheck exists because I see AI code going to production without review.
4. Weekend-only discipline. I don't touch these projects on weekdays. No late-night coding sessions. No "just one more feature." Constraints breed creativity, and a 2-day window forces ruthless prioritization.
What Didn't Work
1. Assuming AI code is production-ready. It's not. I learned this the hard way when I ran a security scan on my own SomeYum code and found issues I'd never have caught manually. AI writes confident code - but confidence isn't correctness.
2. Trying to be on every platform simultaneously. Marketing 4 products across Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Product Hunt, Hacker News, Indie Hackers, Dev.to, and Medium is... a lot. I'm still figuring out the right balance. You can't do everything, even with AI help.
3. Perfectionism on non-core features. I spent an entire weekend on GrowthForge's achievement animations. Cool? Yes. Did it move the needle? No. Should've shipped the AI coaching feature instead.
4. Underestimating the "last 20%." Getting from working prototype to polished product takes as long as building the prototype itself. App Store screenshots, landing pages, onboarding flows, privacy policies - the boring stuff is half the work.
The Numbers (Honest)
I'm not going to pretend these are rocketship metrics. This is building in public, so here's the reality:
- SomeYum: 52K+ daily swipers, growing organically
- TellMeMo: Open source, early users, solving a real pain point
- VibeCheck: Strong developer interest, resonates with the security conversation
- GrowthForge: On the App Store, growing slowly
None of these are making me rich. That's not the point (yet). The point is: a non-developer with a full-time job can ship real products in their spare time, and AI is what makes that possible.
What I'd Tell You
If you're thinking about vibe coding your own thing, here's my take:
- Start with a problem you have. Not a cool technology. Not a market gap you read about. A problem that annoys you personally.
- Ship the ugliest viable version first. Nobody cares about your code quality on day one. They care if it solves the problem.
- Scan your AI code for security issues. Seriously. The convenience of AI coding creates a false sense of safety. The code works, but "works" and "secure" are different things.
- Set time boundaries. Weekend-only saved my sanity and my relationships. Don't burn out on side projects.
- Build in public. Tell people what you're doing. The feedback loop is invaluable and the accountability keeps you shipping.
Three months. Four apps. One full-time job. Zero burnout.
AI didn't make me a developer. It made me a builder again.
I'm Mykola - Director of Tech Program by day, weekend vibe coder by night. You can find me on Twitter/X where I share the building journey, or check out the products: SomeYum, TellMeMo, VibeCheck, and GrowthForge.
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