Non-technical founder, shipped a real iOS app in six weeks, built almost entirely with Claude

Background: no coding experience. Wanted a calorie tracker that didn't paywall the basics (barcode scan, manual entry), so I built one instead of paying for one.

Stack: React Native + Expo (EAS handles the builds, no Mac needed), Supabase for backend and auth, RevenueCat for the one subscription tier. Built almost entirely through Claude, in chat and through Cowork, describing what I wanted and iterating on what came back. This was as much a test of whether that workflow holds up end to end as it was about building the app itself.

The App Store review process took longer than building the app did. Rejected four times before it cleared: missing EULA link, no in-app account deletion, a false alarm where my own backend looked broken to Apple's reviewer because a free-tier database had auto-paused from inactivity, and an "Information Needed" hold that wanted a full screen recording of every core flow before they'd even look at it again. Every single one taught me something real about what Apple actually checks for that no amount of reading their guidelines beforehand would've surfaced.

On monetization: only the AI photo scan is paid, since it costs real money to run per scan. Everything else, barcode scan, manual entry, exercise logging, water tracking, streaks, stays free forever. No trial-requires-a-card trick, no weekly price shown bigger than the real billed amount. Apple pulled a well-known app in this exact space earlier this year for that kind of paywall design, didn't want to build something with the same pattern baked in.

It's small right now, real users are still in the single digits, this isn't a growth-numbers post. Mostly wanted to share the build process since "non-technical founder ships a real App Store app" felt like the more interesting story than the app itself at this stage.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pure-macros/id6793460942 if you want to see it. Happy to answer anything about the process, the App Store review gauntlet specifically, or the actual day-to-day of building with Claude instead of writing code.