guides
Your First App in a Weekend
A Vibe Coding Starter Guide for solo founders with zero coding experience.
This is a living document. Members are encouraged to suggest improvements in the Discord.
TL;DR — On Day 1, you'll use an AI app builder (Lovable for web or Rork for mobile) to describe your app in plain English and get a working prototype with a database and user login. On Day 2, you'll open it in Cursor to polish the rough edges, then deploy it (Vercel for web or EAS for mobile) so anyone can use it. Total cost: $0. Total time: one weekend. You don't need to know how to code. You just need a laptop and a clear idea of what you want to build.
This guide is written for first-time builders with zero coding experience. If you're a builder with a technical background — I would lean towards Claude Code & Codex, spawning multiple instances in parallel with worktrees. A guide for that workflow is coming soon, along with recommended tech stacks and terminal setups. But if you've never built anything before, the tools below are the fastest way to go from idea to live app.
Table of Contents
- Choose Your Path: Web or Mobile
- Before You Start
- Day 1: Prototype
- Day 2: Polish + Deploy
- Common Mistakes
- What to Do After Your Weekend
- Cost Summary
- Glossary
Choose Your Path: Web or Mobile
Before you pick a single tool, decide what you're building. This choice affects every step that follows.
| Web App | Mobile App | |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | A website anyone can visit with a URL | An app on the App Store or Google Play |
| Built with | Lovable → Cursor → Vercel | Rork → Cursor → EAS |
| Best for | Dashboards, tools, landing pages, forms | On-the-go apps, habit trackers, social apps |
| Cost to launch | $0 (free tiers) | $0–$99/yr (Apple Developer fee for App Store) |
| Time to live | ~2 minutes (Vercel deploy) | ~30 minutes (EAS build + review) |
Pick web if your app is primarily used on a computer, or if you want the fastest path to sharing a link. Pick mobile if your app is something people would use on their phone throughout the day — habit tracking, fitness logging, quick-capture tools. If you're unsure, start with web. It's faster to prototype and you can always add a mobile version later.
This guide covers both paths, but pick one and stick with it for this weekend. Don't try to build both simultaneously — that's a recipe for finishing neither. You can always come back and build the other version once you've shipped the first one.
Before You Start
Your Toolkit
You need a set of tools depending on your chosen path. All of them have free tiers. You do not need to pay for anything to complete this guide.
Shared Tools (Both Paths)
| Tool | What It Does | Cost | Free Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub | Stores your code and tracks every change you make. The bridge between your app builder and Cursor. | Free | Unlimited public & private repos |
| Supabase | Your database and user authentication in one place. Handles storing data, user sign-up/login, and controlling who can see what. | Pro $25/mo | 2 projects, 500 MB database, 50K monthly active users |
| Cursor | An AI-powered code editor. You write prompts, it writes code. Agent mode handles multi-file changes for you. | Pro $20/mo | Limited completions |
Web Path Tools
| Tool | What It Does | Cost | Free Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lovable | Turns plain-English descriptions into working web apps. Includes real-time collaboration, Chat Mode, and Visual Edits. | Pro $25/mo | 5 daily generation credits |
| Vercel | Puts your web app on the internet. Connect your code, click deploy, get a live URL. | Pro $20/mo | 100 GB bandwidth, 6K build min/mo |
Mobile Path Tools
| Tool | What It Does | Cost | Free Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rork | Turns plain-English descriptions into working mobile apps using React Native and Expo. Live preview via QR code. | Junior $25/mo | ~35 credits/mo |
| EAS (Expo Application Services) | Builds and submits your mobile app to the App Store and Google Play. | Production $199/mo | 30 builds/mo (up to 15 iOS) |
Rork is a newer tool and may have rougher edges compared to Lovable. Expect
occasional bugs, slower generation times, and fewer community resources.
That said, it's currently the best option for building mobile apps with zero
coding experience. If you hit a wall, the Startup Club Discord has a
#mobile-builders channel where others are working through the same issues.
You might wonder why you need all these. Here's the short version: Your builder (Lovable or Rork) scaffolds the app, Supabase stores the data, GitHub saves your code, Cursor lets you refine it, and your deployment tool (Vercel or EAS) makes it live. Each tool does one job well. Together they cover the full journey from idea to live app.
Pick Your App Idea (Keep It Tiny)
Your goal this weekend is not to build a startup. Your goal is to build one small, working thing and put it on the internet (or the App Store). That's it. You can always make it bigger later.
Think of it this way: you're not building an MVP — you're building an SLC: Simple, Lovable, and Complete. Simple means narrow scope. Lovable means someone actually wants to use it. Complete means it fully delivers on its promise, even if that promise is small. A habit tracker that tracks one habit beautifully is better than a half-broken app that tries to do ten things.
Jason Cohen's SLC: Simple, Lovable, and Complete is one of the best explanations of why "minimum viable" is the wrong mindset. Build something small but genuinely good — not something embarrassing you plan to fix later.
A good weekend project:
- Solves one specific problem
- Has no more than 2–3 screens
- Can be described in a single sentence
- Doesn't require payment processing or complex integrations
- Is something you or someone you know would actually use
Account Setup Checklist
Do this now. It takes about 15 minutes and you don't want to be creating accounts mid-flow.
Accounts (Shared)
- GitHub — Sign up at github.com. Choose the free plan.
- Supabase — Sign up at supabase.com. Use "Sign in with GitHub" to keep things simple.
- Cursor — Download from cursor.com. Install it. Sign in.
Accounts (Web App Path)
- Lovable — Sign up at lovable.dev. Connect your GitHub account when prompted.
- Vercel — Sign up at vercel.com. Use "Continue with GitHub."
Accounts (Mobile App Path)
- Rork — Sign up at rork.app. Create your account.
- Expo — Sign up at expo.dev. You'll need this for EAS builds later.
If you want to publish to the Apple App Store, you'll need an Apple Developer account ($99/year). You do not need this for development and testing — Expo Go and TestFlight work without it. But you'll need it before Step 9 if you want to go live on iOS. Google Play has a one-time $25 registration fee. You can skip both for now and just deploy to TestFlight (free) for testing.
Why GitHub sign-in everywhere? These tools need to talk to each other. When you sign in with GitHub, you're giving them permission to read and write your code repositories. This is what makes the builder-to-Cursor-to-deployment pipeline work without manual file transfers.
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