From prototype to product, without leaving the code
STILL BEING WRITTENThe prototype stopped being the place where you stop. Validate the idea in minutes, the interface in hours, then grow the product where it actually lives.
- Role
- co-founder. Product, design and full-stack development.
- Partner
- Raphael Capeto, on platform architecture.
- Product
- HUAH, a platform that turns time stuck in traffic into points you can redeem with partners.
- Status
- in development, heading to the app stores, starting with São Paulo. No traction numbers yet, and I would rather say so than inflate them.
Three jumps
The idea, in a quick prototype. One of the partners brought the concept as a Replit prototype: enough for the idea to stop being a conversation and become something clickable.
The interface, without code. I built the second prototype in Claude Design, back when the tool was still in closed testing. On purpose: I wanted to validate the UI and a few experience decisions without spending energy on code, at the speed of someone thinking only about interface. Disposable prototype, permanent learning.
The product, straight into code. Validated enough, the prototype moved to Claude Code and became the real repository: a single repository with four applications (mobile app, API, backoffice and partner portal). From there on, evolving the experience and evolving the product became the same gesture.
Full-stack, with AI
In the repository my commits span everything: the mobile app, the API, the partner portal, the backoffice and the UI package. Not as a designer who comments on the front end, but as a partner who builds, with AI as a pair and experience decisions born directly as production code. Two small examples that say a lot: location is never requested while logged out, which is privacy as a UX decision implemented by the person who designed it; and the app warns you when a trip will not earn points, which is expectation management built into the flow instead of a FAQ page.
The discipline I learned in fintech came along from day one: schema-validated design tokens, more than 35 architecture decision records, CI, periodic drift audits between documentation and real code, and development governed by missions with gates.
What this proves
That a designer's reach changed size. The same person who chose the brand color decides the API contract behind the experience, and the same judgment that draws the flow decides what the app does when GPS fails. Small product, declared ambition, and a way of building that only exists because AI became part of the craft.
