Rath Bala

Computer scientist turned builder. Building products around the foundations of a good life - money, relationships and health. Currently: Sloth Money

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

I’m building technology to help people live richer lives - financially, socially and physically.

Current focus: Sloth Money, helping couples plan their money and future together.

I’ll share what I learn about agentic development, product, distribution and the builder mindset.

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

@KDimitratos Yikes. Couples need to stop parenting each other - or turning into one amoeba-like financial blob.

I agree with you. The hybrid model feels seriously under-discussed.

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

In a world where everyone has the ability to 'vibe code' a solution to their problems, is the art of indie hacking truly dead?

I think not. Speaking to others, I've realised that craft / taste is even more important than ever, and to be honest...most people don't want to build.

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

Everyone says distribution is king. I know they’re right - but does anyone actually find it as fun as building?

Here's my attempt at finding out :D

Going to start posting regularly on X. I'm thinking 3 a week is a good, healthy start as I build Sloth Money!

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

Reorderable lists within reorderable lists...why do I do this to myself...

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

Right, the site is officially ‘ready for business’ at https://t.co/Wxt0822srL

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

Tailwind makes things such a breeze…

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

slothmoneyapp now has its very first Instagram post up! So happy. Give it a like and follow the account too if you’d love to support :) I’m aiming to put up personal finance carousels 2x a week.

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

Keep yoyo’ing from Claude to ChatGPT to Claude…I wonder if folks just use both to support their building?

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

Crafting instagram carousel posts is the only thing my brain is able to compute in the evenings…

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

When you realise you only need 1 short webdevsimplified video and the docs to learn Tailwind…

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

Finding a font to match your desired brand ‘feel’ is so damn hard!

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

Back to some good ol’ html, css and js to get my landing page up to scratch.

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

Fiddling with @webflow and trying to get space-between to work…feels like I’m better off building this landing page myself!

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

Fiddling around with Cypress for basic e2e tests and realising I probably need to RTFM…

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

Status update for the quarter:
- built MVP savings roadmap tool
- built MVP financial health check tool

Next quarter’s focus:
Ramp up marketing by upgrading landing pages, improving on health check tool as an engineering-as-marketing solution, and frequent instagram posting.

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

That moment when you realise you have debugger statements to help you debug instead of console logs. Noob gains XP.

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

This is probably prompt engineering 101, but I’ve found I get better answers from ChatGPT when I finish my question by specifically outlining the answer format. For example “Answer format: review top 3 solutions, identify top solution, provide description only, no code.”

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

@archie_wyles @_buildspace Great job dude! Count me in, would love to give it a try.

[Rath Bala @wreckitrath]

First crude version of the money health check is now live:
https://t.co/24dy77VxXU

Feedback welcome :)

Should be a useful first iteration to help people assess their current financial situation and identify improvement areas.

Also calculated client-side so nothing is shared.