Seven steps between your prompt and your first dollar.
What “build a site in 9 minutes” tutorials never tell you. In order, with specific tools and a prompt to paste into your AI at every step.
01
Step 1 · AN IDEA WITH AN OWNER
An idea someone owns
Before you open Lovable, answer three questions: who has the problem, how do they solve it today, and have they ever paid to solve it? If the answer to the third is “never”, careful: people rarely pay for what they’ve never paid for.
Write the sentence: “I help [who] [achieve what] without [pain]”.
Find the real complaint on X, in forums or in your competitors’ one-star reviews.
Talk to 5 people who have the problem. Don’t sell: ask how they solve it today.
Prompt to copy
Act as a skeptical customer. My idea is: [describe your idea]. Ask me 10 hard questions about who would pay for this, how much, and why they don’t already solve it with a spreadsheet. Then tell me the smallest version that would validate the idea in one week.
02
Step 2 · A GOOD PROMPT
The good prompt
AI builds what it understands. A good first prompt is a short spec: who uses the app, what it does in three screens, what data it stores and, above all, what it doesn’t do yet.
Start with the smallest version someone would pay for.
Ask for one screen at a time and test it before moving on.
Keep versions: connect GitHub from day one so you can undo any disaster.
Tools:LovableBoltReplitv0Claude CodeCursor
Prompt to copy
I want to build [name], a web app for [who] that [what problem it solves]. Screens: 1) [..], 2) [..], 3) [..]. Data it stores: [..]. What it must NOT do yet: [..]. Design: clean, mobile-first and accessible. Before writing code, explain the plan in 10 lines and wait for my OK.
03
Step 3 · OUT OF DEMO MODE
Take it out of demo mode
“yourapp.lovable.app” is fine for showing your family. To get paid you need your own domain (about $10–15 a year), HTTPS and a site that looks good when someone shares it.
Buy a .com and connect it: Lovable, Vercel, Netlify and Cloudflare Pages make it a few minutes’ job.
Put the title, description and share image (og:image) in the HTML, not injected with JavaScript.
If your app is a React SPA, prerender the public pages: WhatsApp, X and LinkedIn don’t run JavaScript.
Change the favicon: the Vite one gives away that it’s a demo.
Prompt to copy
My app is a React SPA built with Vite. Make the home page and public pages serve the title, meta description, Open Graph tags (og:title, og:description and a 1200×630 og:image) and main copy in the initial HTML, no JavaScript needed. Use static prerendering at build time. Don’t change the design.
04
Step 4 · PAPERWORK & SECURITY
Paperwork and security
If you sell from or to the EU, you need a legal notice, a privacy policy and, if you use tracking cookies, a consent banner. And the part almost nobody checks: making sure your database isn’t open to anyone.
Legal notice with your details, privacy policy (GDPR) and terms of sale.
If you only use cookieless analytics, you don’t need a banner.
Never put secret keys (Stripe, OpenAI…) in code that reaches the browser.
If you use Supabase, enable Row Level Security on every table. Without it, anyone can read your data.
Prompt to copy
Review my project like a security auditor. Look for secret keys exposed in the frontend, Supabase tables without Row Level Security, endpoints without authentication and personal data stored for no reason. Give me a list sorted by severity and fix the critical issues first, explaining every change.
This isn’t legal advice. For your specific case, talk to a professional.
05
Step 5 · TILL OPEN
Open the till
The fastest way to charge without coding: a Stripe Payment Link. If you’ll sell worldwide, a merchant of record like Lemon Squeezy, Paddle, Gumroad or Polar charges on your behalf and handles sales tax in every country, for a bigger fee.
Charge from day one, even if it’s little: “I love it” doesn’t pay for the domain.
Test everything in test mode before switching on real payments.
Show the price. No visible price, no sales.
Before your first sale, talk to an accountant about registering your business.
Add a “Buy” button to my app that opens this Stripe Payment Link: [paste your Payment Link]. After payment Stripe redirects to /thanks: create that page with a thank-you message and next steps. Show the price ([price], tax included) next to the button.
06
Step 6 · NUMBERS IN SIGHT
Measure just enough
If you don’t measure, you won’t know whether nobody comes or they come and leave. Simple, cookieless analytics is enough.
Install cookieless analytics and skip the banner.
Define one event that matters: signup, “Buy” click or payment.
Look at the numbers once a week, not every hour.
Tools:PlausibleUmamiGoatCounterCloudflare Web Analytics
Prompt to copy
Install [Plausible / Umami] in my app using its official script, without cookies. Add an event called “buy_click” when someone presses the buy button and another called “signup” when they finish signing up. Don’t add any other tracking tool.
07
Step 7 · FIRST USERS
First users, by hand
Nobody will stumble upon your app. First users are won by hand: telling the story of what you build where the people with the problem already are.
Build in public on X or LinkedIn: screenshots, numbers and mistakes.
Post on directories: Product Hunt, Peerlist, BetaList… and the Launchito showcase.
Collect emails from day one: every visitor who doesn’t sign up is gone.
Talk to every user. The first ten tell you what to build next.
Prompt to copy
Write me 5 posts for X about how I built [app] with AI: the problem, the first prompt, a mistake I made, the screenshot I should show and the link. Friendly tone, no hype or promises, 280 characters max each.
TOTAL$1.00
Your first dollar. The rest is repetition.
Which step is your app on?
Check it for free and we’ll tell you what it’s missing to get paid, with a prompt to fix each thing.