Hey HN, After years of false starts learning to code (pure math background, but got stuck in tutorial hell), I finally shipped something real with Claude Code as my patient tutor.
The problem: Most guys have terrible dating profile photos. Poor lighting, bad angles, unflattering composition. Men generally don't like taking pics, so our photos suck.
My solution: Built a pipeline that takes uploaded photos and enhances them specifically for dating apps by tying AI tools together. Trying different things but had the most success with training flux and using enhancor or kontext for skin texture (and midjourney for minor editing).
Tech stack: Vanilla HTML/CSS/JS frontend, Netlify Functions backend, Cloudinary for storage, Google Sheets as database. No frameworks - kept it simple to actually finish something.
(I also tried Tailwind with CSS but that eventually caused build conflicts, so I removed it and wrote everything in pure CSS. Lesson learned.)
The learning curve was steep, but Claude Code answered literally hundreds of basic questions. I used todo folders to save context between sessions and screenshot folders for debugging help. Some other things too but with the pace of innovation, many of those are already outdated.
Took about two months to get it all working. Mostly just happy to have shipped something and "vibelearned." Hoping that by shipping and learning incrementally, I can tackle more complex projects.
All advice for this new indie hacker/newbie coder is welcome.
RJ
PaulHoule•7mo ago
rjyoungling•7mo ago
Oh that's funny, I stumbled upon this a few weeks ago. Maybe via X? I like it. I think maybe a hot or not feature could be dope to help guys figure out which of their pics are most popular? Beautiful lander too btw man.. can't wait to be able to make stuff like that.
PaulHoule•7mo ago
The big concern I have is that you might get a date and if you look really different from your picture you're in trouble -- particularly when it involves things that you can control, like clothes.
$15 a month is cheap compared to a good tailored suit but really, the good tailored suit could be a great investment because it will help you not just look good but feel good.
As a semi-pro photographer I've thought about what kind of services guys could use in this department, my skill set can help but many guys could also use a good barber/hairdresser or a fashion consultant too so practically I'm imagining a "dream team" of 2-3 people could help somebody out to not just get a good photo but look better in general but this would probably cost a few hundred bucks not including clothes and stuff. I can see how I'd team up with a few people to serve a few customers in my town but how you make it scalable business seems tougher.
As for now though I'd really recommend photofeeler for anybody who is concerned about how they come across in photos whether it is for dating or something like LinkedIn.