She Built a Personal Beauty Tool with AI. In 2 Days. For $11.

At Needs To Exist, we love startup ideas.

That’s why we built NTE Pro, a curated database of 4,000+ ideas so you’re never stuck staring at your notes app.

But ideas alone don’t change much. What does? Acting on them.

Starting this weekend, we’re launching It Exists - stories of people who took an idea, big or small, and built something. Some became companies. Some just solved a personal problem. All of them made it real.

It’s the same spirit behind NTE Zero to One, where we help you turn an idea into an MVP, fast.

Let’s learn from the doers.

Jackie Bavaro has already had the kind of career most people spend decades chasing.

She was Head of Product Management at Asana from the early days through its rise to $100M+ in revenue. She co-authored Cracking the PM Interview and Cracking the PM Career, books that became must-reads for aspiring product managers. (If you haven’t read them yet, fix that.)

These days, Jackie’s not grinding full-time, but don’t mistake that for slowing down.

She’s writing a Substack, running half-marathons, volunteering with civic tech orgs, mentoring PMs, building apps for fun, and exploring what’s possible with AI.

And somewhere between all of that, she built LashTracker, a lash extension tracking tool, in two days, for $11 with no engineering team.

Let’s rewind.

“You look tired.”

Jackie’s natural lashes are short and blonde, the kind that turn every Zoom into a concerned wellness check.

That’s how she discovered Lashify, which lets you glue on tiny strips underneath your lashes in all sorts of styles: natural, dramatic, you name it. But there was a catch.

“Some combos looked amazing. Some looked awful. Some stayed for a week. Some fell off after two days.”

She needed to track her lash setups. But how?

“People were adding notes to their lash photos... in their photo app. That’s it.”

That’s the top solution? Add notes to your lash photos… and try to remember which 'IMG_2938' was the good one?

No one had a better solution. And then it hit her.

She didn’t need to wait for someone else to build it.

She could build it herself.

Lesson 1: Build With Intention

Jackie wasn’t daydreaming about billion-dollar startup ideas.

She was just annoyed her lash notes lived in her photo app.

That’s the kind of idea we look for at Needs To Exist. Not always the ones you dream up for pitch decks (even though we like those too). But the ones that whisper, “you could actually fix this.”

She was already curious about Replit’s Vibe Coding, AI agents that help you build software by describing what you want. And suddenly, the dots connected.

“This would be the perfect small project to learn with.”

Not to go viral. Just to make her life better.

The 20-Minute Vibe Hack

Her first move wasn’t opening Figma or spinning up a database.

It was a ChatGPT prompt:

“Help me write a PRD for a lash tracking web app…”

Within 20 minutes, she had a working (but janky) version built with Replit AI.

“The lash selection UI was awful. Five clicks for every strip. The UI flow was chaotic. But it was enough to know what I wanted.”

Lesson 2: Bad Versions Lead to Better Ones

Jackie didn’t aim for perfection. She aimed for clarity.

Build fast. Get feedback. Iterate.

So instead of fixing the broken version, she scrapped it and started again and smarter this time.

She asked ChatGPT to interview her like a junior PM would:

• What does this app need?

• What does success look like?

• What should each screen do? 

That second build gave her an MVP with:

• Image uploads

• User accounts

• A lash selection flow that didn’t make her cry

• QR code testing on mobile

• A real database behind it

She was shipping. Solo. With AI.

“It was like working with a junior dev who never sleeps, never argues, and fixes bugs instantly.”

The Magic of AI-First Building

Every little feature, from cropping photos to saving lash styles used to take days inside big product teams.

Now? Minutes.

“There’s a lightness to it. I stopped asking, ‘Is this worth it?’ and just made the app better.”

When photos started disappearing, she played detective, cracked the case, and taught the AI how to fix it.

“You don’t need to know everything. You just need enough instinct to ask the right question.”

Jackie shared LashTracker with the Lashify community. People loved it. They were using it.

“It wasn’t perfect. But it worked. And it helped real people.”

All of this was built in two days. Total cost? $11 in Replit credits.

Lesson 3: The Bar to Build Has Collapsed

Jackie’s not trying to raise a seed round. She’s not doing a launch thread.

She built LashTracker because she could. Because it helped her. And because she knew others would use it too.

That’s the heart of Needs To Exist:

• You don’t need to be early.

• You don’t need to be perfect.

• You just need to build something real and now.

Since LashTracker, Jackie’s made a custom plank timer for her workouts. She’s vibe-coding 2D games with her son. And she’s writing about it all on her Substack.

She’s not slowing down. She’s speeding up, because the tools finally let her move at the speed of her ideas.

What You Can Learn From Jackie

• Start with your own life. What frustrates you? What’s missing? Solve it.

• Don’t wait until you know how. Learn as you build. Use the tools. Figure it out live.

• Ship something small. Test. Tweak. Ship again. Play.

• Support others who are building, especially people like Jackie, who are generously sharing what they learn.

Follow Jackie & Show Love

👉 Read her Substack: jackiebavaro.substack.com

👉 Share LashTracker with your Lashify friends

👉 Tell her what to build next

She’s especially hoping someone makes:

"A vibe coding tutorial for a 2D pixel-art game with assets and all."

Hint hint. Let’s make that exist.

Have an idea of your own?  Don’t let it rot in your notes app.  Open ChatGPT. Open Replit. Try something.

And if you want help turning your idea into an MVP check out NTE Zero to One.

We’ll help you go from idea → shipped product quickly (maybe not as fast as Jackie)

You don’t need to be first. You just need to go.

Let’s build.