Build in Public: Week One of De-Slopping the Indie Web
What I published, what landed, and what I am changing for week two.
July 26, 2026
One week ago I said I would de-slop the indie web in public, one post a day. Here is the honest week one recap, because building in public means showing the receipts, not just the wins.
What went out
Seven posts, one theme: the look that gets AI built apps dismissed is a checklist, not a talent. The spine of the week:
- Why your app looks AI generated, the tell list.
- The 12 tells that out your app as vibe coded, the full checklist.
- What 1,590 launches reveal, the data.
- The 50ms rule and face blindness, the why you cannot see it.
What I learned
The idea that landed hardest was not a design tip. It was the reframe: slop is death by a thousand unmade decisions. People do not want to be told they have bad taste. They want to be told the problem is a count they can fix. That framing is doing the work, so week two leans into it.
What I am changing
Week one was mostly principle. Week two gets concrete: real teardowns, a before and after, and the trust signals a page is missing. Less theory, more pixels. The build in public discipline is working exactly as advertised: publishing daily forces the thinking to sharpen, because a vague post is obvious the moment it is public.
The ask
If you have a vibe coded app you are quietly embarrassed by, that is the whole target audience of this project. Reply with the URL and it might be the next teardown. Or run it yourself through auditmy.design and skip the wait.
Week two starts tomorrow. One post a day, same as promised.