nico

everybody's site looks the same

Mon, 02 Nov 2026 09:12:20 -0800

i think i found my next thing. on the toilet. of course.

i was scrolling before work and it hit me. everybody’s vibe coded site looks the same. same hero. same gradient. same three cards with little icons. it’s like the free template you get when you buy a domain name, just with more purple.

it’s slop. and i say that as a guy who has shipped exactly zero sites anyone has paid for. so take it for what it’s worth.

but that’s kind of my whole thing lately. if everyone is doing it, it’s not special. i don’t like following the crowd. i never have. so i keep asking myself one question. what’s the exact opposite of what everybody’s doing?

nobody seems to be doing the opposite. that’s the gap. i think if i figure that out, i’ve got a shot.

same energy with the other idea i told somebody about this morning. an app that mutes slop posts on x. you know the ones. calling all builders, let’s connect, drop your link, hashtag hashtag hashtag. i’d use it every day. maybe that’s two products. maybe it’s one. i don’t know yet. i’m writing it down before the day job eats my brain.

and then a woman landed in rome, posted about checking her bug fixes before she even left the airport, and somehow that gave me another idea. i told her thank you. she has no idea. that’s how it works now. i read something, my brain goes sideways, and i’ve got a new note on my phone.

i also got schooled in the replies today. a guy told me he’s building an iphone app that lets you talk to an ai assistant that’s running on a different computer. plus a little merge defense game on the side. my brain exploded. i asked him to explain it again. he did. he was super patient about it. i’m all new to this and people keep being nice when i ask dumb questions. i’m not used to that. in sales nobody explains anything twice.

somebody else told me they work out of a coworking space sometimes but mostly from home now. i asked why it’s even required. not criticizing. just curious how other people set up their lives. mine is a bed, a 2015 mac air and gus.

ok the numbers.

i’ve been on here 2 days. i’m at 17 followers. that’s crazy to me. a few days ago i was talking to people with like 11. i told everyone i think i’ll hit 100 by the end of the week.

i might be wrong. that’s fine. i said it out loud so now i have to show up.

watch me boys.

gus was asleep on my feet for the whole thing. he’s not impressed by 17. he wants breakfast.

now i have to go sell stuff on the phone for eight hours and pretend i’m not thinking about templates.

what are you building?

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 21:30:00 -0800

i spent most of sunday in the replies.

the weather was amazing and i was inside on x. i know. but it’s sunday so i can’t complain. no phones, no manager, nobody to sell anything to. just me trying to get some work done and doing research.

i’m new to all of this. like days new. so i asked a lot of questions.

i got into it with a guy who’s building a personal finance app. not in a bad way. i asked him what he thinks is a huge waste of time, because to me making another finance app in a crowded market sounds like making another word app when we already have so many. i told him i wasn’t trying to criticize. i just wanted to understand how he thinks. maybe my thinking is all wrong.

he wrote me a real answer. long. find something with a real need, validate it before you sink a ton of time into it, then put everything into that one thing. somebody spending that much time typing to a guy with like 11 followers meant a lot.

and it hit on my actual struggle. every time i get an idea, i think there’s already an app for that. and even if there isn’t, how do you get customers? customer acquisition is the hardest part. i think that’s what everybody struggles with and nobody wants to say.

the secret to the sauce is figuring out how to get customers without an audience. i don’t know how to do that yet. if you do, tell me.

somebody told me it’s not about building, it’s about selling. i kind of agree. it’s about marketing. funny thing is i sell for a living. i just never sold anything i made.

i also asked about the people who build in secret. everybody talks about distribution like you need it first. but somebody had to build something before they had anybody to show it to.

another guy had a reddit post blowing up and he didn’t even put his app in the title. he just showed something cool it can do. that’s it right there. great info first. sales last.

i met some cool people too. a guy who launched his first app a few days ago. a guy on day 7 of trying to grow on here. a guy who’s going through it with his health and is still building apps from bed. that one stuck with me. his brain is strong. let’s go.

some guy posted that he works with a view in sf. so i posted my view.

my view is gus.

somebody said he’s cuter than theirs. correct. he’s also my cto. very firm with me. he decides when the laptop closes.

somebody asked if i code with music or in silence. neither. i code with blinders. ignore the slop, do the work. the distillers in my headphones don’t count.

that’s sunday. no product yet. a lot of questions. a dog on the bed.

so what are you building? i’m asking for real.

i made $0 this month

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 14:30:00 -0800

the 1st of the month on x is a weird day.

everybody posts their numbers. $10k. $28k. $43k. $72k. one guy made $80k in october and posted it from a coworking space.

i replied to a bunch of them with the same thing.

i made $0 this month.

i’m not being sarcastic. that’s my real number. $0 from my apps. i don’t have a link yet. i’m rich in my heart though, so there’s that.

i’m not mad at those guys. good for them. some of them said they failed for years before it worked, and that’s the part i actually want to hear about. not the magic overnight thing. tell me what you did wrong. tell me what didn’t work. that’s useful. a screenshot of a stripe dashboard isn’t.

the one i liked most was a guy who made $800 at his barista job plus some freelance. barista for the win. that’s real. that’s somebody grinding with a normal job and building on the side, same as me.

so here’s my side of it.

i sell solar and home warranty upgrades over the phone. i work for a corporation i can’t stand. the job is shit but i’m good at it and it pays well.

i don’t lie to people on the phone. ever. what i tell them is the truth. it might not be for everyone, but we pay out when you need it. it’s only a scam if we don’t pay.

so i sell stuff i don’t care about so i can build stuff i do. that’s my bio and it’s also the plan. the job is the funding round. nobody’s giving me money. i’m giving me money, 8 hours at a time.

one guy posted that he left a cto job to build solo. i asked him straight up, yeah but do you have cto money? that’s a huge difference from someone like me trying to make it. i wasn’t being a dick. it’s just true. it’s easier to jump when there’s a mattress.

somebody else posted that $2,000 a month is hard to get to and even harder to keep. i believe him. i’d still take $2,000 a month over nothing.

honestly i’d be happy with $200 a month. pay my electric bill. that’s the first goal. not a lambo. the electric bill.

by the end of the day i wanted to mute all the mrr posts. most of it is either noise or bullshit. i put on the blinders and went back to work. nobody cares, work harder. somebody posted that and it was the best advice i saw all day.

gus made $0 this month too. he’s not stressed about it.

next month i want a number that isn’t zero. even if it’s $9. i’ll post it either way.

day 1. idea at 2am

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 03:20:00 -0800

it was 1:32am and i had no idea what to build.

not a cute no idea. a real one. laptop open, gus asleep against my leg, a monster getting warm next to me, and nothing in my head.

i didn’t feel like going to bed either. that’s the dangerous combo.

so i did the thing i always say i won’t do. i posted about it.

“day 1. idea at 2am. i have no freaking clue what i’m doing. how do you guys come up with ideas?”

nobody answered. that’s fine. it was 1:32am and basically nobody follows me yet.

i also made a little filter that turns every photo into ascii characters. i use it for pretty much everything now. it makes my place look like a hacker movie instead of a guy on a 2015 mac air at 2am. that’s the whole reason. it’s fun. not everything has to be a business.

i kept coding anyway. not on anything real. just poking at stuff to see what breaks. around 2:30 i got hungry and the only thing in my head was del taco. coding all night will do that to you. the dollar menu is my business partner at this point.

i stayed up till 3. when i got up i had three ideas, which is three more than i had at 1:32.

build a chrome extension.

build a shopify store tool.

find the most boring niche on earth and build in it.

i don’t know which one yet. honestly the boring one scares me the least. boring means nobody on here is fighting over it. nobody makes a thread about the boring stuff. but boring stuff is what people actually pay for.

the other thing i keep asking is whether anybody even buys boilerplates anymore. everybody on my timeline is shipping in a weekend with ai. building got cheap. the ideas didn’t. and the customers definitely didn’t.

by the next morning i was already calling it day 2. that’s how it goes when you don’t really sleep. the days kind of blur together.

later i screenshotted the creator rewards page. 3 verified followers out of the 500 you need. 0 impressions out of the 500k. i got on x two days ago and i wanted to save the memory. it’s only one way up from here. that’s not me being hyped. that’s just math. you can’t go below zero.

monday i’m back on the phones selling stuff i don’t care about. that’s the deal i made with myself. the job pays the bills. the nights are mine.

gus doesn’t care about any of this. gus cares that i close the laptop and come back to bed. he’s right most of the time.

so that’s day 1. no idea, three half ideas, one dog.

let’s see what day 2 looks like.