Nicolas was watching the internet obsess over the new Airbnb icon style.
People everywhere were sharing complex prompts and hacks to get that specific look. But, instead of just watching the hype pass by, he decided to build a tool that made the process instant.
Based in Spain, Nicolas is a lifelong developer who wrote his first lines of code at age ten. Now, he uses modern vibecoding tools like Lovable to move at a speed that traditional development cannot touch.
His latest project, bnbicons.com, is the result of that efficiency.
Shipping Fast with a Vibe Stack
Nicolas does not mess around with slow development cycles.
His stack is built for speed and scale: Lovable for the build, Supabase for the backend, and Stripe for payments. To power the actual icon generation, he uses Replicate with Flux models.
This setup allowed him to handle a massive surge of interest early on. Today, the business has seen over 40,000 icons generated by a community of 15,000 users. Even as a solo founder, he has already crossed the $2,000 revenue mark.
The Expensive Lesson of the Viral Launch
While his launch on ProductHunt was the moment that changed everything, it also led to his biggest mistake. The project gained massive visibility and was shared across the web, but Nicolas was not prepared for the cost of success.
"I initially didn't have limits on what people can create, nor a paying plans," Nicolas says. "It costed me 1000s of dollars in the first days after the ProductHunt launch."
When you are using expensive infrastructure like AI models, "free" can break the bank in a matter of hours. His advice to other founders is to put limitations in place early.
If your backend costs money every time a user clicks a button, you need a way to capture that value immediately.
Why Speed is the Ultimate Advantage
For Nicolas, the inspiration was simple: he got tired of seeing people struggle with manual prompts. He saw a broken process and used his background as a developer to fix it.
"I am a developer, learned to program when I was 10, always had ideas," he says. "Now using vibecoding tools like Lovable I can ship faster."
The result is a consistent, stylish icon generator that solves a specific aesthetic need for modern businesses. Nicolas is proof that if you can spot a trend and build the solution before the hype dies, you can find a market almost overnight.
You can follow his work at nicolasgrenie.com or catch his latest updates on X at @picsoung.
