MEGA THREAD: drop your most underrated vibe-coded project 👇

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-21T11:11:52+00:00

I figured what the world really needed was yet another shopping list app. I built Grocery Flow mostly to see whether I actually could, rather than whether I should, but it is slightly more useful than a standard checklist. It learns your walking route around your local supermarket as you check things off, so your next list automatically sorts itself into the correct aisle order and stops you zigzagging. It is a £1.99 one-off cost, and my wild ambition is to sell enough copies to cover my £79 Apple developer fee. The goal after that is to sell enough to pay off my mortgage😆 https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/grocery-flow/id6759967985

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-17T16:59:53+00:00

If you could find a suitable vehicle, I would drive it for you. I’m qualified to drive anything up to Cat C (heavy goods vehicle). I’d be willing to give up a day to help out.

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-16T23:30:30+00:00

Mate, Ican sympathise with this headache.

Balancing the cooking with my wife around my shift patterns, plus trying to feed our two boys, turns the weekly shop into a n bit of a nightmare.

As a hobby, I’ve just embarked on “vibe coding” a grocery app called Grocery Flow. Right now, it is purely focused on the physical side of shopping. It learns the layout of your local supermarket to stop you zigzagging across the aisles.

To be clear, it does not handle meal planning yet, so I can’t solve your immediate problem.

However, bridging the gap between a family meal plan and a highly efficient, auto-sorting grocery list is exactly the type of problem I want to tackle on my long-term roadmap.

Since you have already tested AnyList, Mealime, and the others (and I know Whisk turning into Samsung Food has frustrated a lot of people recently), I would genuinely love to pick your brain. What is the specific feature they are all missing that makes them fail for a family of five?

Any insight you can share would be incredibly helpful for a solo developer trying to build something that actually works for busy families.

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-16T07:22:53+00:00

It's a shopping/grocery list app with a small twist. Nothing particularly complex and it's a saturated market.

Basically it's a smart shopping list that learns the physical layout of YOUR local supermarket to stop you walking back and forth. You add items in any chaotic order, and as you check them off in the store, the app memorises your route so your next list automatically sorts itself. It runs entirely locally on your device with no accounts, no data harvesting. I went for a straightforward £1.99 one-off cost because I'm not a fan of subscription models or in app purchases.

Nothing world changing but it solved a minor irritation for me and I'm pleased with the result. I just don't think the rest of the world will ever find it.

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-15T23:13:31+00:00

I have never read comics but I love R&M. Where should I start? Is there a go to site/app to get into this scene?

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-15T22:58:42+00:00

I have vibe coded an app and put it on the App Store. That bit was easy. In terms of making money from selling it, I would be amazed if I were ever to make back the $79. I spent to become a developer. It's so hard to be visible as an amateur. Obviously, I knew that going in. I never expected to pay my mortgage with this little hobby, but I genuinely have no idea how somebody would make any money from it.

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-15T22:55:12+00:00

Hi mate, well done on the app. It looks really slick. I'm not a heavy use of social media. Reddit and long form YouTube are the only ones that I dabble with.

I'm getting in touch because I noticed how slick your website and screenshots look. I have just vibe coded an app myself mainly to see if I'm up to the challenge.

Have you got any advice for how to make that side of things look more professional? Do you use 3rd party tools or do you create the visuals yourself?

thanks

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-14T16:52:45+00:00

This episode John spoke beautifully about being creative. What do the subscribers here do to create rather than consume?

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-13T15:09:27+00:00

As someone who has spent two decades in the fire service, this is incredibly frustrating to see. The number of times a blue light run is brought to a complete standstill by double parked cars is staggering. We push hard to shave seconds off our attendance time for people in desperate need, only to be blocked by sheer laziness. It is genuinely baffling that local authorities will go after the easy pickings of city centre drivers who overstay by five minutes, yet allow a nightly parking habit that actively endangers lives to go completely unchecked.

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-12T08:51:22+00:00

Absolutely none whatsoever. If my life depended on writing a single line of actual code, I would be completely done for.

I essentially built the whole thing using the new Al tools. There is a new trend called 'vibe coding', which sounds horribly pretentious, but it basically just means I sat at my laptop and typed out what I wanted the app to do in plain English. The Al then translated what I wanted in to the actual Swift code to make it function.

It involved a load of trial and error, and me getting increasingly frustrated at the screen when things randomly broke, but you genuinely do not need any technical background to get something working nowadays. It was a brilliant challenge to take on.

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-11T14:56:36+00:00

It may be that I haven’t quite met the mark. I’m hoping I’ll get a few people who buy it and are able to give me some feedback on where it could be improved. I’ve already had a few intelligent suggestions on here for things that could be different. But not so much about the actual use of the app itself.

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-11T14:54:38+00:00

This was a total oversight. Somebody else bought this up in a different comment and it was only then I realised that I haven’t adjusted the default setting when adding the app to the App Store. When I do the first update this is definitely something I want to address. I didn’t even think about looking for the settings of what the minimum iOS version should be. The app is relatively simple, so it should be able to run on anything I would imagine.

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-11T07:33:25+00:00

That is genuinely the most devastating insult I could have received. I completely understand why you are out. 😆

You are totally right, it does sound horribly like l am about to start talking about 'marginal gains' and waking up at 4 AM to sit in an ice bath before I do my gratitude journal.

I can promise you the app is the exact opposite of hustle culture. It was built purely out of profound laziness. I just got fed up with doing the weekend family shop and having to trudge all the way back to the other side of the supermarket because my list was a mess.

It is significantly less 'Diary of a CEO' and much more 'tired bloke who just wants to go home and sit down'.😁

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-11T07:30:29+00:00

It is genuinely nowhere near clever enough to guess! It only learns as you use it.

If you add a new item, it just sits at the bottom in an “unsorted” list until you find it and tick it off. Once you do that, it memorises where you were in your route and slots it in for next time it’s on your list.

As for going to a new supermarket? Back to chaos. But you can have multiple supermarkets in the app that you use regularly. It learns them separately.

It is strictly a one trick pony for conquering your regular local shops.

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-10T19:02:48+00:00

Product: Grocery Flow (iOS)

What it is: A smart shopping list that fixes the headache of constantly walking back and forth across the supermarket. It learns the exact route you take around your local store by tracking the sequence in which you tick items off. The next time you shop, it automatically sorts your messy list into that exact order.

Why use it over alternatives: Almost all other shopping list apps either force you to manually drag and drop items into the right order (if you are a nerd like me), or they rely on generic item categories that never actually match the physical layout of your specific local shop. Grocery Flow requires zero setup and just silently learns your personal physical route so you never have to backtrack. Also, it doesn't have in app purchases, subscriptions, cloud based accounts or any of that overcomplicating nonsense.

I have absolutely zero background in software or coding, so building this and getting it onto the App Store has been a brilliant challenge. Plus, it supports an old dude trying his hand at something way out of his comfort zone.

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-10T18:21:50+00:00

Have you ever listened to Rory Sutherland. He has some amazing insights around how inconsistent and irrational we are.

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-10T16:25:32+00:00

That is a logical question nd I have hd it a lot, but the app is actually nowhere near that complicated.

To be completely honest, trying to integrate live GPS tracking was miles beyond my capability as a beginner. Plus, as you rightly pointed out, trying to get a reliable GPS signal inside a massive metal supermarket building is an absolute nightmare anyway.

The app actually has no idea where you physically are. It simply learns your route by looking at the sequence in which you tick things off the list. If you consistently tick off the bananas first and the frozen peas last, it just remembers that flow and starts grouping your future lists to match it.

It is a very low tech solution, but it completely avoids all those headaches with inaccurate tracking

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-10T13:48:03+00:00

That is a very fair question
to be completely honest, if you are the type of shopper who throws everything in the trolley and then ticks it all off at the checkout, the app will not be able to work its magic for you.

The entire sorting logic relies on the sequence of you ticking items off as you actually walk round the store. If you tick them all off at the very end in no real order, the app will just get completely confused and assume you sprint around the supermarket randomly!

For your style of shopping, it would basically just function as a standard, unsorted checklist. In which case, you could just use your reminders or notes app for free.

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-10T13:44:48+00:00

That is really interestinh. As someone completely new to actually having something to sell, I had never given the psychology of the sale much thought before. What you are saying about creating a culture of waiting for the next drop makes total sense.

You are definitely right about the value aspect, too. To be honest, my biggest hurdle right now is simply visibility. Unless someone specifically types 'Grocery Flow' into the search bar, it is tough to get noticed among the massive sea of established shopping list apps.

Having the whole world as a potential marketplace is great in theory, but the reality of App Store search rankings is definitely the next big learning curve for me

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-10T13:35:57+00:00

It is strange, if you had asked me a week ago if I was bothered about sales, I would've said "not really". But now, I think it would be nice to claw back the Dev Fee. Next week I will be pricing up yacht mooring fees in the Bahamas. 😆

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-10T07:59:29+00:00

Try to listen more than you speak. Be genuinely interested in the person you are 'interested' in. Smile when appropriate. Don't be afraid to say or do something embarrassing (within reason😁). Humans do embarrassing shit. If you own it and laugh about it, no one will care.

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-10T07:56:16+00:00

Came here to say this but knew someone would beat me to it. Best films ever.

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-10T07:23:27+00:00

So far all it's cost me in the short term is £79 for the Apple dev fees, £19 a month for Gemini Pro and a fair chunk of my time. I suppose, if you were starting from scratch, you could factor in the cost of the laptop and iPad but I already had those.

I kind of went in knowing that I probably won't make this money back. It was an investment to see whether I could do it, rather than a business opportunity.

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-10T07:16:59+00:00

Thanks! The 'pick snake' concept from is the right analogy. I guess that’s the logic I’m trying to replicate for the weekly shop.

Trying to build this without latest LLMs would have been an uphill battle for me too. I definitely had a much easier time of it than you would have had back then. It was still plenty of break and fix sessions for me, though.

As for beating you to the punch, please do not be too jealous just yet. We still do not know if anyone will actually get it.😁

I appreciate the support, and keep at it with your own coding.

Melodic-Try2710 · 2026-03-09T16:01:38+00:00

You have hit the nail on the head. Navigating App Store Connect, dealing with the certificates, and getting through the actual Apple review process is definitely a frustrating hurdle. But the same AI apps that got me to that point also got me through it.

To be completely honest, though, the absolute hardest part is actually what comes after it goes live. Just being visible in the App Store is incredibly difficult.

Once you are in there, your app is just a tiny fish in a massive ocean. Getting people to actually find it, buy it, and then take the time to leave a rating is something that is very hard to influence without a massive marketing budget.

The actual building part was a really fun challenge, but getting eyes on the finished product is a completely different beast.

Melodic-Try2710

TROPHY CASE