Vanbuddy | Devpost

Inspiration

The internet has made the world more connected than ever. Yet for vanlifers and nomads, meaningful connection is still incredibly difficult.

Traditional social and dating apps are optimized for people who stay in one place. Vanlifers don’t. You’re constantly moving — and that makes dating, making friends, and finding trusted builders feel like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Having previously built Hivvy, a social app centered on positive ideologies, I’ve always been fascinated by digital communities. I saw a clear gap: there was no dedicated platform designed specifically for people living life on wheels.

That’s what inspired Vanbuddy — an invite-only social app built exclusively for vanlifers and nomads.

What it does

Vanbuddy is a lifestyle-driven social platform that allows vanlifers to: • Sign up via invite-only access to maintain trust and safety • Share updates and see posts from other vanlifers in a social feed • Message friends, potential dates, or builders • Swipe and match with other nomads based on shared interests, lifestyle, and location • Access a Builders marketplace with ratings and reviews • Upgrade to Vanbuddy+ for unlimited swipes, builder access, ad-free experience, visibility into who liked you, and a Plus badge

It combines dating, community, and marketplace infrastructure into one platform tailored to nomadic life.

How we built it

My background is primarily in product design, so this was my first time vibe coding an entire mobile app from scratch.

I discovered Shipyard nearly two weeks into the hackathon, so I had to move fast. Most of the project was built at night and on weekends — there were several times I fell asleep while working on it.

The build process involved: • Researching vanlife community pain points • Designing UX flows and interfaces • Building frontend and backend systems • Implementing swipe-based matching logic • Integrating RevenueCat for subscriptions • Deploying to TestFlight • Hosting the backend on Vercel

The matching system considers interests, travel patterns, and lifestyle alignment — not just photos.

Challenges we ran into

Backend Deployment Issue

After shipping to TestFlight, I discovered the entire backend was still running on my local server. Attempting to refactor it using AI nearly corrupted the project. I had to manually restore the structure and properly redeploy the backend to Vercel.

In-App Purchase Failures

The most frustrating challenge was integrating in-app purchases. • Prices weren’t showing. • Builds were failing. • Live builds threw misconfiguration errors. • Test purchases wouldn’t validate.

I searched extensively but found no direct solution — even similar unanswered issues online. Eventually, after reaching out to a friend who had recently launched his app, I discovered missing RevenueCat environment variables and configuration mismatches.

After fixing environment variables, clearing caches, and rebuilding — everything finally worked.

This debugging process took days and required deep infrastructure understanding beyond just coding.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Shipping a fully functional mobile app within hackathon constraints • Successfully integrating subscription payments • Deploying a production-ready backend • Building a swipe-based matching system • Designing a Builders marketplace with ratings • Creating a launch video and product narrative • Completing the entire project while balancing work and limited time

Most importantly, turning an idea into a working, testable product.

What we learned

Building Vanbuddy expanded my skillset beyond design into: • Backend architecture • Infrastructure deployment • Payment systems integration • Debugging production-level issues • Full-stack product ownership

I unlocked a new level of execution — moving from concept to deployment independently.

I also learned that resilience compounds. Every challenge forced deeper technical understanding.

What's next for Vanbuddy

We plan to: • Optimize performance and scalability • Introduce legal ID verification with a green verification badge • Implement in-app marketplace payments for the Builders section using Stripe Connect alongside RevenueCat • Allow users to share posts • Expand matching intelligence

From a GTM perspective, we will begin engaging vanlifers across Reddit, TikTok, and Instagram to onboard early adopters and build an organic community foundation.

Vanbuddy is just getting started.