Interestingly, while you were publishing this post, I was using Bolt for the first time. My initial reactions are:
- It is very quick at building a usable app from limited instructions. Unlike you, I didn't do a lot of research first. I just typed in my idea to see what it came up with.
- Like my first attempts at reading the Hive blockchain, it made basic mistakes with the API commands. Unlike me, it trapped the errors as soon as I ran the app. Then, after offering, it quickly fixed the code. Explaining the changes as it went.
- That early interaction seems to me to be a great starting point for learning about the Hive blockchain API. Because anyone starting now, could compare the faulty code with the working code. Then study the Hive docs in detail around the relevant points. Which is much faster than my starting point of trying to understand the docs, trying to create a working framework, and spending endless hours feeling like I was getting nowhere.
Finally, I ran out of the daily limit of AI tokens on Bolt. Proving that I would have done more if I'd researched my starting prompt. But I'm happy to continue with it tomorrow. After which, I should publish a post about my Bolt test.
Towards the end of your interesting post, you say:
I have to find a way to monetize my apps
My approach in that situation has always been to start looking at how other people monetize similar things. Then do it better. Unfortunately, I know almost nothing about monetizing VNC apps. Except that I made money from VNC by giving customers remote computer support. Which was cost-effective because they didn't need to pay my travelling expenses.
!BBH
I highly recommend asking AI on say grok, or chatGPT to create the PRD (product requirement document) out of any idea you have. Write everything you know about idea. And then ask AI to turn this into PRD and add constraints, limits, stack for implementation. Then send that PRD to bolt. You'd have better output infact sometimes app will be one-shot prompt.
My issue with monetization is Stripe has it's issues with EU and other nations and so I am kind of limited. I decided to go with Polar and dodopayments but for now yet to understand how to use them in app.
VNC app in my context would be I am the app maker and that's all. People download and use it for their own each others support context. I have to kind of gatekeep or simply charge say 2.99 for one time download. Hard to get customer this way haha. But yeah have to learn how others are doing it.
I think that your method for using AI is much better than my haphazard approach. So I'm going to try that next week.
Would a freemium model work for your app?
I think it would work. I looked at one tool called "Revenuecat". But unfortunately it is locked in with stripe. I have to find other tools. I suppose "fastspring" is another option which I can use for in-app purchase and it would work without paypal and stripe.