It all started in 2019, when my now brother-in-law asked me to build an app for his wedding with my sister. The idea was simple but powerful: collect all the guests' photos without relying on cloud providers, logins, accounts, or anything complicated.
At first, I laughed. But after thinking about it for a while, I realized how brilliant the idea actually was. That’s when the first version of Vrooma was born. The URL was fedde-hochzeit.de. The app was a basic ASP.NET application – not pretty, not fast, but it worked. Just like today: scan a QR code, share easily, access quickly, and upload instantly. We collected hundreds of photos. It was amazing to see all those moments captured. But after the wedding, I lost focus. The site went offline, and the idea of turning it into a business faded away.
It took me four more years to bring the idea back. I asked a colleague to help rebuild the app, and he was immediately excited. That moment reignited something in me – the joy of creating something real, something I could own and grow.
As a consultant, life as a developer is great. You get to build cool applications, explore new technologies, and learn a lot about software lifecycle management. But you’re not responsible for the product. If something breaks, it’s usually the Product Owner who has to deal with the pressure from management or colleagues.
Time flew by. The app was ready for testing, and a friend used it for his wedding. Again, it worked beautifully – lots of photos, happy guests, and magical memories. But then my colleague decided to leave the project, and I was left alone with a tech stack I didn’t understand and couldn’t maintain.
A few weeks later, the AI boom started. Suddenly, there were tools promising to help you build apps just by prompting. I thought, maybe this could help me with Vrooma. So I started prompting like a 90's script kiddie – no clue what I was doing, but confident that AI would support me. And it did. With help from platforms like lovable.dev, Cursor, Bolt.new and others, I managed to rebuild Vrooma. After a few weeks of weekend "development", I brought it back to life – with new features, a fresh design, and a codebase I finally understood and could maintain.
AI helped me automate tasks, streamline development, and make updates easier. But more importantly, I learned what it means to develop, maintain, and take full responsibility for a product – my product.
It’s not easy to decide what’s necessary and what’s just “nice to have.” Which features are useful, and which are just noise? What do users really need? I learned to listen to feedback, iterate quickly, and not be afraid to change direction when needed.
So it was time to refactor again. Vrooma worked – but it looked terrible. Now, with a new design, video support, a payment workflow for buying, upgrading, or renewing events, email notifications, and Stripe integration as a trusted payment provider, Vrooma feels like a real product.
Today, I’m proud of what Vrooma has become. It’s not just a website – it’s a platform that brings people together, captures memories, and creates lasting connections. I’m excited to see where it goes next and how it can continue to grow and improve.