Workshop - Launch Without a CTO: Starting Session

What will I walk away with?

You’ll walk away with a live marketing site with a working contact form - simple, but this forms the base for a fully customisable, scalable web app.

• Built to scale with real code behind it
• Developer-friendly for future handoffs and collaboration
• Fully exportable so you’re never locked in

See example - ReelyPro

This isn’t just a quick prototype — it’s a practical launchpad for real products, built using this same process.

The steps we'll take

1. Purchas a custom domain & setup your email (free)
   
2. Create your base app using Lovable (free)
   
3. Add functionality, styling, and updates (free)
   
4. Add working contact form & transactional email (free)
   
5. Publish your app (free)

Along the way you'll find prompt examples, templates, and recommendations.

All examples relate to ReelyPro, built using this process.

Phase 1: Set Up Your Domain and Email

Purchase domain

Step 1 - Go to Go Daddy or a provider of your choice
Step 2 - Sign up with an existing email (Google sign up is quickest)
Step 3 - Search a domain and purchase

Recommendation - Don't opt in for the default website providers offer.

Create company email account

Step 1 - Sign up to Zoho using Zoho Mail Free Tier
Step 2 - Follow the domain verification steps
Step 3 - Create an email like firstName.lastName@domain.com

Phase 2: Set Up Your Base App (Lovable)

Initialize a new Lovable project

Step 1 - Sign up at lovable.dev
Step 2 - Create initialisation prompt
Step 3 - Create new project with prompt

Recommendations:

• Sign up using your new email created in the Create company email account section above.
• Limit the scope. Work on one specific thing at a time.

Improve the design

Improve the design before creating more pages so that the pages can be created off of the improved design (instead of needing to work through each after the fact).

Recommendation - Use screenshots of existing website designs you like.

Publish (Hosting method #1 - not recommended)

Step 1 - Go to your Lovable project
Step 1 - Click publish
Step 2 - Add your custom domain (requires paid plan)

🚫 Why we don’t recommend this long term:
You’ll likely outgrow these limits quickly—and paying just to remove branding isn’t worth it when you can deploy for free using developer-trusted tools.

👉 Jump to Phase 5 for the free method

Phase 3: Editing & Updates

Add a New Features

Step 1 - Create prompt
Step 2 - Branch off existing branch
Step 3 - Deploy and test

Updating features/functionality

Step 1 - Select the component
Step 2 - Edit with prompt (on a separate branch)
Step 3 - Deploy and test

Style & UI Tweaks of select component

Step 1 - Use the Edit button in Lovable side panel
Step 2 - Select component and make change
Step 3 - Deploy and test.

Auto-fix

If there is an error in the code Lovable flags it and offers to automatically fix the issue.

Step 1 - Click auto fix
Step 2 - Copy error into ChatGPT and apply fix (in a branch)
Step 3 - Manual fix if needed. Ask for help or bring to next session

Phase 4: Transactional Emails

Supabase Setup

Required for email distribution.

Step 1 - Sign up for Supabase
Step 2 - Create a new porject
Step 3 - On Lovable click Supabase Connect

Supabase allows 2 free projects. Follow Lovable walkthrough steps to connect to the created project.

Resend Setup

Required for email distribution.

Step 1 - Go to Resend
Step 2 - Sign up, create and save API key, verify domain, and add sender (e.g. inquiries@yourdomain.com)

Create Contact Us page

Step 1 - Create new feature prompt
Step 2 - Apply new feature prompt

Improve the Email template

Step 1 - Use ChatGPT to generate an email template.

Recommendations:

• Preferable to prompt with brand context - screenshots of your landing page, logo, brand colours, etc.
• Limit the scope of ChatGPT prompts.

Phase 5: Publish Your App (Free)

Once your app is built in Lovable, you can publish it for free using tools developers already trust:

• GitHub → stores your app code (like Google Docs for developers)
• Vercel → turns that code into a live website, automatically

This setup gives you:

• A custom domain (no “.lovable.dev” in the URL)
• Faster load times
• No watermarks or upgrade prompts

If you want to understand more about version control, collaboration, and safer updates, we go deeper in the CI/CD for Founders session.

Step-by-Step Hosting Setup

1. Create a GitHub account

Go to github.com and sign up with your new company email.

2. Create a Vercel account

Go to vercel.com and sign up with the same email.
📱 Note: You’ll need to verify your phone number once.

3. Connect Lovable to GitHub

From your Lovable project:

• Click Connect to GitHub
• Authorize access and create a new GitHub repo when prompted

Lovable now has a place to “save” your project code.

4. Connect GitHub to Vercel

From your Vercel dashboard:

• Click Import Git Repository
• Choose the GitHub repo you just created
• Click Deploy

✅ Your app is now live — and hosted for free on Vercel.

Optional: Add a Custom Domain

Want your site to be at yourcompany.com instead of yourproject.vercel.app?

• In Vercel, go to your app → Settings → Domains
• Follow prompts to connect your domain (you’ll need access to the domain registrar like GoDaddy)

For more detail on branching, previews, and collaborative updates, check out the companion session:
👉 CI/CD for Founders

Need help?

Reach out to join a workshop where together we walk through the above and more.