Dishcount

A couple months ago, I didn't know what Node.js was. Today I have a live web app with 20+ API integrations, a database, user authentication, and real users starting to trickle in.

The problem I was solving

Every Sunday night I'd flip through grocery store weekly ads, try to find deals, then figure out what meals I could make from them. It took forever and I still overspent. I looked for a tool that would automatically pull the sales from my local stores and suggest recipes. Nothing existed.

So I decided to build it myself

I used Claude as my coding partner. I'd describe what I wanted, it would write the code, I'd test it, we'd fix what broke. Over and over. I went from zero to a deployed production app in about 60 days. I worked on this at night after working my full-time job and putting the kids to bed.

The result is Dishcount. You enter your zip code, pick your grocery stores, browse this week's deals, pick items you want and items you already have, and get personalized recipes built around the sale items. It even adds ingredients to your Kroger cart in one tap.

What's under the hood

• Node.js and Express backend

• Vanilla JS frontend — no React, no frameworks

• Supabase (PostgreSQL) for the database

• Claude Haiku Vision OCR to read weekly ad circular images

• Kroger API for live pricing and cart integration

• Spoonacular for recipe data

• 20+ grocery chains with weekly deal extraction

• Hosted on Render

Total cost to build: about $400. Monthly operating cost: $17.

What I learned

1. AI doesn't replace knowing what to build. I spent more time thinking about the product than writing code. The hard part was never "how do I code this", it was "what should this actually do?"

2. The last 10% takes 90% of the time. Getting a working prototype took a couple weeks. Making it production-ready took a month and a half of security audits, mobile fixes, edge cases, and polish.

3. You don't need permission to build something. I'm not a developer. I don't have a CS degree. I'm a dad from Dayton, Ohio who was tired of overpaying for groceries. That was enough.

Where I'm at now

Dishcount LLC is registered in Ohio. Trademark filed. 1,100+ deals cached across 20+ stores. Weekly pipeline auto-refreshes every Wednesday. I'm looking for my first real users and honest feedback.

If you have a minute, try it out: dishcount.co. Enter your zip, pick some stores, and tell me what breaks or what's missing. I can take it.