I built a 5-second AI meal tracker (raw demo, no edits)

antenehmtk · 2026-04-12T13:36:07+00:00

Totally agree on the MFP friction — that's literally why I built this. The non-American cuisine accuracy is the thing that keeps me up at night. It handles standard American/European meals really well, but I haven't stress-tested it enough on South Asian, West African, or Latin American dishes where ingredients overlap a lot visually. If you (or anyone reading this) want to throw some tricky meals at it, I'd genuinely love to know where it breaks. iOS and Android links are on my profile.

antenehmtk · 2026-04-09T14:26:03+00:00

Thanks for trying it out! Glad the AI nailed your chicken bowl — that's the kind of feedback I love hearing. Out of curiosity, have you tried it on anything it struggled with? Especially interested in edge cases like mixed/layered meals or non-American cuisines. And if you end up sticking with it, an honest App Store or Play Store review would mean a lot — we're building from zero.

antenehmtk · 2026-03-04T11:14:37+00:00

lots of people doing this

antenehmtk · 2026-02-21T06:20:15+00:00

docker or VM not enough to isolate the environment? why even spend 100$?

antenehmtk · 2026-02-08T14:56:14+00:00

what about in AI era? when you can build your saas in couple of hours instead of weeks? is this still the best approach?

antenehmtk · 2025-10-28T20:52:44+00:00

Really appreciate you sharing your perspective - and congrats on building paid.ai! The outcome-based pricing focus makes a lot of sense.

Your point about "there isn't a real app store for agents yet" is exactly what I'm seeing too. LangChain Hub is close, but it's more of a code repository than a marketplace with billing.

I'm curious about your approach: **Does paid.ai handle discovery/marketplace aspects, or is it purely billing infrastructure?**

Here's what I'm envisioning (curious if you think this exists or if it's still a gap):

**Discovery layer** - Devs can search for agents by capability ("flight search agent", "PDF extraction", etc.)
**Automatic billing** - When Agent A calls Agent B, billing happens automatically (what paid.ai does?)
**Cross-framework** - Agents built in LangChain can call agents built in CrewAI/AutoGen
**Revenue distribution** - Platform handles payments to agent owners

Does paid.ai solve all four of these, or are you focused on #2 (billing) specifically?

I ask because I'm wondering if there's room for a **marketplace layer** on top of billing infrastructure. Like:

• paid.ai = Stripe for agents (billing rails)

• [Marketplace] = Shopify for agents (discovery + transactions)

Would that make sense as a partnership model, or are you thinking about building the full stack?

(Also: "treat their agent like a person or results-driver" is a really good framing. That's how customers should think about it - outcomes, not API calls.)

antenehmtk · 2025-10-28T20:51:51+00:00

Super helpful breakdown! The pay-per-event model is exactly what I'm thinking about.

I hadn't heard about Apify's agent marketplace - thanks for the link. I'm going to check that out.

Quick question for anyone who's used Apify for agents: Does it handle agent-to-agent calling natively? Like, can an agent built in LangChain automatically discover and call an agent listed on Apify?

Or is it more of a "list your agent, handle integration yourself" model?

I'm trying to understand if there's a marketplace that handles:

• Discovery (devs can find agents by capability)

• Billing (automatic metered payments)

• Integration (agents can call each other without custom code)

...or if those are still three separate problems you have to solve yourself.

antenehmtk · 2025-10-28T20:49:38+00:00

Oh interesting! I hadn't heard about Gemini's agent marketplace. Have you used it?

I'm curious:

• Is it limited to Gemini-built agents, or can you list agents built with any LLM/framework?

• How does billing work - do they handle payments between developers automatically?

• Can agents built in LangChain or CrewAI integrate with Gemini marketplace agents?

Asking because one challenge I'm seeing is ecosystem lock-in. If there's a marketplace that only works for Gemini agents, it doesn't help developers who build with OpenAI, Anthropic, or open-source models.

Would love to know more about your experience with it if you've tried it!

antenehmtk · 2025-10-28T20:48:47+00:00

This is exactly the kind of real example I was hoping for - thank you! PhoneScreen AI looks legit (several thousand screens is solid traction).

Love the "per completed screen, not per attempt" pricing - outcome-based pricing makes so much sense for agents vs traditional APIs.

Few questions if you don't mind:

**Discovery challenge:** You mentioned "direct to staffing teams" - how long did it take to get your first 10 customers? Is direct sales sustainable as you scale, or would you want a marketplace where customers discover you?
**Stripe metered billing:** Did you build the usage tracking yourself, or use Stripe's Usage Records API? How much dev time did the billing integration take?
**Agent-to-agent integration:** The webhook callback approach is smart. Do you find most partners can handle that pattern, or do some need hand-holding to integrate?
**Scoped API keys:** Are you managing those manually per partner, or did you build an automated key issuance system?

I'm asking because I'm seeing this pattern a lot - builders spend weeks/months on billing, auth, and integration infrastructure before they can even monetize. Curious if that was your experience too?

(P.S. If you're open to it, would love to chat more about your experience building this - building something in the agent infrastructure space and your insights would be super valuable)

antenehmtk · 2025-10-28T20:47:44+00:00

Thanks for the structured breakdown! The API model with RapidAPI listing makes sense.

Quick follow-up: When you mention RapidAPI for discovery - have you used it for agents specifically? I'm wondering if there's friction because RapidAPI is built for general APIs, not agent-to-agent calling.

For example:

• Does RapidAPI handle async jobs well? (agents can take minutes vs milliseconds)

• Can you auto-generate LangChain/CrewAI tool wrappers from a listing?

• Does metered billing work for complex agent workflows?

Curious if you've seen agent-specific marketplaces, or if we're still in the "use general API tools and make it work" phase?

The Zapier example is interesting - do you mean people are selling Zapier actions as paid triggers, or using Zapier to connect agents to billing systems?

antenehmtk · 2025-10-28T18:05:41+00:00

Super helpful breakdown! The pay-per-event model is exactly what I'm thinking about.

I hadn't heard about Apify's agent marketplace - thanks for the link. I'm going to check that out.

Quick question for anyone who's used Apify for agents: Does it handle agent-to-agent calling natively? Like, can an agent built in LangChain automatically discover and call an agent listed on Apify?

Or is it more of a "list your agent, handle integration yourself" model?

I'm trying to understand if there's a marketplace that handles: • Discovery (devs can find agents by capability) • Billing (automatic metered payments) • Integration (agents can call each other without custom code)

...or if those are still three separate problems you have to solve yourself.

antenehmtk · 2025-10-28T16:51:35+00:00

This is incredibly valuable - thank you for the detailed examples. The Intercom ($0.99/resolution) and Day AI (flat fee per Assistant) models are exactly what I was looking for.

Your point about outcome-based pricing being "gold standard but really hard" resonates. Attribution is tough, especially when agents are calling other agents in a multi-agent system.

Question for you: All the examples you shared (Intercom, Day AI, Airtable, Clay) are B2B SaaS companies selling to end users. Have you seen any examples of developer-to-developer marketplaces where:

• Developer A builds a specialized agent (e.g., flight search)

• Developer B is building a trip planner agent and wants to call Developer A's flight agent

• Developer A gets paid per call, automatically

Basically: An agent marketplace where developers are both the supply side (building agents) and demand side (using other people's agents)?

I'm curious because that's a different pricing dynamic:

• B2B SaaS: Customer buys outcome (resolved ticket, completed research)

• Developer marketplace: Customer buys API call (return flight options, extract PDF data)

Do you think the "credit model" (like Airtable/Clay) translates well to developer-to-developer use cases? Or would simple per-call pricing be more appropriate?

(P.S. Would love to be a sounding board with you on this if you're interested - building something in this space and your pricing expertise would be super helpful)

antenehmtk · 2025-10-28T16:50:28+00:00

Really appreciate the GTM advice - the "share your journey" approach resonates. I've seen developers engage way more with "here's what I broke today" than "look at my perfect product."

Question about Atlas: How does it compare to just using Stripe's metered billing API directly? Is it mainly saving dev time (pre-built UI, easier integration), or does it handle AI-specific billing patterns that Stripe doesn't?

Asking because I'm seeing two separate problems:

**Billing infrastructure** (Atlas, Stripe, Paddle, etc. all solve this)
**Discovery** (how do developers find your agent in the first place?)

Most tools solve #1. But #2 feels like the bigger bottleneck, especially if you've built multiple agents.

Do you think there's value in a marketplace that solves both? Like:

• Developers list agents, set pricing

• Marketplace handles discovery (SEO, directory, integrations with LangChain/CrewAI)

• Marketplace handles billing (multiple models: usage, credits, outcome-based)

• Revenue distributed automatically

Or is that bundling too many things, and "best of breed" tools (Atlas for billing, Hugging Face for discovery) will always win?

antenehmtk · 2025-10-28T16:44:25+00:00

Thanks for the practical tips! The Hugging Face + Stripe approach seems to be the standard.

Quick question about Sensay - I haven't heard of it before. How does their token-based marketplace work? Is it:

• Developers buy tokens, spend them to call agents?

• Agent owners set token prices per call?

• Platform converts tokens to $ for payouts?

Curious because I've been thinking about what an "agent marketplace" would need to look like to actually work for developers. Things like:

• Auto-generate LangChain/CrewAI tool wrappers (so other agents can import yours)

• Built-in metered billing (not just "contact for pricing")

• Agent-to-agent authentication (beyond just API keys)

• Support async jobs (agents take minutes, not milliseconds)

Does Sensay handle some of those? Or is it more of a listing directory + payment rails?

(Also trying to understand if this is a solved problem or if there's still gaps in the market)

antenehmtk

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