Knowledge Jam, March 20, 2026
Building software
just for me in 2026
"I wish there was an app for this."
I love building software to solve niche problems.
With AI, I can now do this at scale.
Today I'll show you five things I built.
Five things I built
| 01 | Nimantrana | Digital invitations for Nepali events |
| 02 | Personal automations | Frost scout |
| 03 | Kinmel App | Tell it what's in your fridge; gives you 3 recipes |
| 04 | Real estate chrome extension | Listing-to-client matching for buyer's agents |
| 05 | A second brain | OpenClaw + Obsidian-style vault + Slack |
01
Nimantrana
...means invitation in Nepali
Digital invitations for Nepali events
The "he works in IT" Problem
- The Request: "Can you design our wedding invitations?"
- The Reality: I'm not much of a designer. But I have a buddy named Claude...
- The Assist: Pasted several examples into Claude and asked for templates.
- The Result: Built a full SaaS. https://nimantrana.online
Nepali invitations have a very specific look and color.
Red, gold, and honorifics.
Source: Etsy / 1892239508
Solving for a Niche Audience
- Two Calendars: Nepali lunar calendar (2082 BS) alongside the standard (2026 AD) calendar.
- No Special Keyboards: Type in English characters; the app converts it to Nepali script in real-time.
- Beyond Weddings: Templates for traditional ceremonies like the "Rice Feeding" (Pasni).
- Proper Etiquette: Automated "Mr. & Mrs." style honorifics for elders.
- Where the users are: One-tap sharing to WhatsApp.
Tech & Cost
| Frontend | Astro + Svelte | Free |
| Backend | FastAPI | VPS |
| Database | PostgreSQL | Same VPS |
| HTTPS | Cloudflare Tunnel | No nginx |
Total: price of two coffees
Demo Video
nimantrana.online
Guest Experience
- ✔ Google Maps venue link
- ✔ Real-time countdown timer
- ✔ Instant RSVP feature
Host Control
- ✔ Admin dashboard
- ✔ Guest list management
- ✔ Track attending vs. declined
Easy CRUD app. Took about one weekend.
Helped family use it for a wedding invite.
02
Personal automations
Tiny VPS + Prefect flows + Slack
Problem
- "Is there frost on my car?" — Check the weather app every morning. Try to figure out whether car is frozen.
Demo
Slack in action
- Frost alert from this morning
Screenshot — running on personal Slack workspace
Tech & Cost
| Orchestration | Prefect | With dashboard to manage flows |
| AI | OpenAI gpt-4o-mini | For all things that need an LLM |
| Data | PostgreSQL | For whatever needs storage |
| Notifications | Slack Webhooks | Everything posts to Slack |
Shared hosting with nimantrana.online. OpenAI: pennies per day.
Total time spent: maybe four hours.
They've been running for months.
03
Kinmel App
Tell it what's in your fridge; gives you 3 recipes
The Friction
- Staring into the fridge at 6 PM.
- Having random ingredients but no clear recipe.
Demo
Kinmel App in Action
I fully recognize this is just a ChatGPT wrapper...
but it's convenient.
Plus, it gave me an excuse to mess around with iOS development, which was fun.
The Pipeline
Voice Dictate
"I have eggs, spinach, and feta."
OpenAI API
Hits GPT-4o with context
JSON Recipe
Structured data returned
Recipe Cards
Pretty UI displays options
Pantry Management
What's built already:
- Inventory Backend: PostgreSQL schema tracking every item and its 'bought on', 'best by' dates.
- Automation Ready: I already use Prefect + Slack for other projects; the 'pipes' are laid.
The Future: Proactive Kinmel
- "Spinach going bad!": AI notices spinach expires in 2 days and suggests recipes to use it up.
- Geofenced Reminders: Slack ping as I'm leaving the office: "Hey, you're near Target and low on eggs. Stop and grab a dozen?"
- Easy data entry: Scan receipt from Kroger
04
A Chrome extension
for a buyer's agent
Started as a tool for myself, then built it out as an MVP
Inside the mind of a buyer's agent
"I find a listing. Then I mentally run through my clients..."
Would the Garcias like this?
Is this in Mike's budget?
Enough bedrooms for the Wilsons?
Wait! Does it have an HOA?
10 new listings/day × 10 clients = 100 mental comparisons
Basically O(n2)
How It Works
- Right-click listing (Zillow, Redfin, RealTracs) — "Who wants this house?"
- Extension scrapes the page — price, beds, baths, features
- Matches against client preferences — budget, location, dealbreakers
- Ranked results + one-tap share — match score per client, send a text (FUTURE!) right from the browser
The pipeline I'm building towards
Demo
Right-click → Results
Pre-recorded (set speed to 0.5x in player)
The Entire Codebase
background.js
Context menu + scoring logic
~170 lines
content.js
Page scraper + results overlay
~220 lines
styles.css
The overlay UI
~260 lines
Total: ~600 lines. No backend. No database. No server.
05
A personal assistant
that remembers things
OpenClaw + Slack + a folder of markdown files
The problem
I go through moments each day where I want to take notes on something, but I end up not doing it.
- Voice Dictation: I want to just talk and have it saved.
- Easy Search: "What treats did I buy the dog last time from Costco?"
- Recall: "What was that taco place we liked in Germantown?"
- Knowledge: "Where did I store the spare keys to my car?"
How it works
| Interface | Slack: I text it in a stream of consciousness manner |
| Agent | OpenClaw in Docker + gpt-4o-mini (for now) |
| Memory | A vault of markdown files: inbox/, areas/, resources/, archive/ |
| Recall | "Remember this" saves a note. Questions check the vault first. |
| (FUTURE!) Tasks | Write scheduled reminders and one-shot tasks via prefect |
"Remember this..."
"What did the vet say?"
The vault
vault/inbox/
Unsorted notes
vault/areas/
Ongoing: health, finance, home, dog, travel
vault/resources/
Research, reviews, reference
vault/archive/
Completed or inactive
Markdown files. Auto-committed to git.
What's next
| Now | File-based search — works well with a clean folder structure |
| Next | RAG over the vault — embed notes, vector search for better recall |
| Really Next | Graph Database — (with some cool UI) |
It's just search over markdown files.
But it remembers things I don't.
What I Learned
- Pick a small annoyance.
If it bugs you daily, it's a good candidate. - Boring tech is better.
I use the same stack as my day job so I can move faster. - AI is just a tool.
The problem doesn't care if you're using GPT-4 or a regex, as long as it's solved. - Don't let AI drive 100%.
I want to steer the $ decisions, and high level architecture. - Build it so you can fix it later.
Can you debug this in 6 months when you've forgotten how it works?
The Cost of All of This
| Hetzner VPS | $7.59 per month |
| Cloudflare Pages + Tunnel | Free |
| OpenAI API calls | Pennies/day |
| Chrome Extension | $0 |
| Total | $7.59 per month |
Low risk to experiment.
Why bother building "tiny" software?
→ Scratch the itch: Go from idea to MVP in an afternoon for that sweet, sweet hit of dopamine.
→ Testing the hype: Where does AI *actually* fail?
→ Stay sharp: I can learn a new framework or pattern in a weekend.
That's it.
Five problems, five side projects, minimal cost.