In this post I am going to show you how I created a VNC service app using Bolt and Cursor. And what challenges are there to build this and how monetization is something I am struggling to fight with it.
So the first question everyone would ask me, why build such app when there are already many other apps out there. My answer would be that is exactly why someone should build such an app and scratch their own itch.
Big corporations make such app and support at the cost of the money and so some of the time making opensource and free is the way to work. I use AI to make such apps and then let them opensource so someone else can use what I built and get their work done.
First thing I did was used Deepseek and Grok and came out with the PRD which is a document that would tell you what features and what stack and what features need to be in the prototype.
Then I made sure to add the data to the Bolt, so that it can make the skeleton. And that helped with another feature. And it gave the rough output, which is what I usually feed to the cursor.
Then cursor churned out the rest of the app and build the output required here.
[IMAGE: https://images.ecency.com/DQmZJL7DpQkTvL2c9ctXCC3C8tLod5pdhnwYgNNybMfmsSQ/moonvnc.png]
What it does? It would allow you to connect to the servers and then desktop you can access. Currently it is made up of the free libraries and on the top of it. I hope to get the Apache guacamole so that it would do the terminal based server interface as well and you get that output too.
And this is where we are stuck another app with no monetization plan as of now.
https://x.com/devnamipress/status/1956791438643269942
That being said, I have to find a way to monetize my apps. As otherwise my efforts, weekend moonlighting won't be sustainable for a while. And that brings me to the more difficult issues.
In grand scheme, let's hope life gets better and I find something to survive on. :)
Interestingly, while you were publishing this post, I was using Bolt for the first time. My initial reactions are:
1. It is very quick at building a usable app from limited instructions. Unlike you, I didn't do a lot of research first. I just typed in my idea to see what it came up with.
2. Like my first attempts at reading the Hive blockchain, it made basic mistakes with the API commands. Unlike me, it trapped the errors as soon as I ran the app. Then, after offering, it quickly fixed the code. Explaining the changes as it went.
3. That early interaction seems to me to be a great starting point for learning about the Hive blockchain API. Because anyone starting now, could compare the faulty code with the working code. Then study the Hive docs in detail around the relevant points. Which is much faster than my starting point of trying to understand the docs, trying to create a working framework, and spending endless hours feeling like I was getting nowhere.
Finally, I ran out of the daily limit of AI tokens on Bolt. Proving that I would have done more if I'd researched my starting prompt. But I'm happy to continue with it tomorrow. After which, I should publish a post about my Bolt test.
Towards the end of your interesting post, you say:
> I have to find a way to monetize my apps
My approach in that situation has always been to start looking at how other people monetize similar things. Then do it better. Unfortunately, I know almost nothing about monetizing VNC apps. Except that I made money from VNC by giving customers remote computer support. Which was cost-effective because they didn't need to pay my travelling expenses.
!BBH
I highly recommend asking AI on say grok, or chatGPT to create the PRD (product requirement document) out of any idea you have. Write everything you know about idea. And then ask AI to turn this into PRD and add constraints, limits, stack for implementation. Then send that PRD to bolt. You'd have better output infact sometimes app will be one-shot prompt.
My issue with monetization is Stripe has it's issues with EU and other nations and so I am kind of limited. I decided to go with Polar and dodopayments but for now yet to understand how to use them in app.
VNC app in my context would be I am the app maker and that's all. People download and use it for their own each others support context. I have to kind of gatekeep or simply charge say 2.99 for one time download. Hard to get customer this way haha. But yeah have to learn how others are doing it.
