Latest news with #Rork
Gizmodo
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
This AI App Is Using an AI-Generated Ad to Show How Easy It Is to Generate AI App Slop
Back in my day, the phrase used to be 'there's an app for that,' and that's still the case, though with one major amendment: now, it's 'there's an AI app for that.' In fact, there's even an AI app for making apps—buckle up, kiddos, things are about to get meta. Let me explain: Rork, which I stumbled across while scrolling X, is—if we are to drink the Kool-Aid—the app to end all apps. The font from which all other apps may flow. The cold fusion of coding. Alright, I'm exaggerating, but it's exactly what I alluded to: an app that makes apps, which is like a hat on a hat if the first hat actually made the second hat. To make things even more meta, Rork used an AI ad with Google's new Veo 3 video generator to promote its tool. Is your head spinning yet? Mine kind of is. When I say Rork makes apps, I mean it really makes the damn thing (at least I think it does since I wouldn't know a functional piece of code if it sat on my chest and suffocated me like a sleep paralysis demon). But on the surface, it does the whole thing. I went to the web version of Rork to try it out (there's no mobile app that I'm aware of), and it seemingly took my text prompt, 'I want to make an app that matches me with similar-sized people in my area to fight. Like Tinder but for fisticuffs,' and ran with it. Introducing Rork 1.0 Make any mobile app you want, save it to your phone or share it with the world – in minutes. Powered by Claude 4. Video by Veo 3 AI. — Rork (@rork_app) May 22, 2025 Once I punched the prompt in (pun intended), Rork got to work (thinking for a while as AI does) and then used its corresponding large language model (Anthropic's Claude 4 model) to start drawing everything up. And I mean everything—colors, features, parameters, basically every aspect of an app that you might need to launch. And the conjuring doesn't stop there. Once everything is devised, Rork's interface splits everything off into packages if you want to look at the code (that is, if you're capable of reading it, unlike me), and then it does my favorite part—it generates a usable preview that you can test on your phone or another device. After the AI had coded everything, I was able to scan a QR code and generate a preview using ExpoGo, a tool that lets you deploy code in a preview mode. So, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: FightMatch, Tinder for kicking ass. It's worth noting that I tried to make this even more meta by prompting Rork to make an app that uses generative AI to make images or video—an AI app that generates AI—but it ran into some issues that I wasn't able to fully wrap my head around. Per Rork, they were 'critical errors,' and even when I clicked the 'fix' button, it wouldn't budge. No AI app inception today, folks, sorry. On one hand, as someone with no coding experience, I'm impressed. Rork, as promised, was able to take my very simple text prompt (Tinder for fighting) and write up all the code to make it happen in about a minute or so. Again, a coder I am not, but that feels pretty extraordinary from a sheer idea to preview perspective. I'm fairly certain whatever Rork and Claude generated wouldn't be enough to push to an app store right away, both from a technical and aesthetic perspective, but as a first draft, it's at least serviceable, if very far from perfect. Also, if I'm being honest, I was looking for more of a Fight Club-type app over MMA, but I suppose Claude played this one safe. There's obviously vast potential here to expedite app creation, but just like with every generative tool like this, there's also potential for something less exciting—slop. Like I wrote earlier this week, tools like Google's Veo 3 and Flow are impressive technical feats, but they also feel primed to further bloat an already overwhelming bucket of AI slop. There's always that question: do we need more apps or do we need better apps? I'm a proponent of the latter philosophy, but if there's one thing I've come to expect in the tech world, it's more. But hey, if I get rich quick with FightMatch, I can't really complain, can I? And if you disagree, swipe right, and let's settle this the old-fashioned way.
TechCrunch
05-05-2025
- Business
- TechCrunch
Rork's founders were almost broke when a viral tweet led to $2.8M and a16z
Rork founders Levan Kvirkvelia and Daniel Dhawan are living a life that sounds like a plot for a movie. But it really happened. They went from broke, life savings spent, and in debt $15,000 apiece on credit cards — Kvirkvelia was even sleeping on a mattress at a friend's apartment — to $100,000 of revenue in five days. And that led to a $2.8 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz's new Speedrun program, with other backers piling in like Hustle Fund's Elizabeth Yin, ChapterOne, Founders Inc., Austen Allred, Expo's Charlie Cheever, and Evan Bacon, Runway's Siqi Chen, and more. All because one person tweeted about their mobile app vibe coder product, and the tweet went viral. Rork lets people with limited technical backgrounds build mobile apps with a simple text prompt. On February 12, after months of work and one pivot, Kvirkvelia and Dhawan launched Rork with a tweet. 'We were complete underdogs. We were really running out of money really soon,' Dhawan told TechCrunch. They had gotten a small check from one angel investor, Matt Shumer, the co-founder CEO of OthersideAI, which makes AI writing tool Hyperwrite. Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you've built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you've built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | BOOK NOW Their first tweet got passed around a bit, but it wasn't until February 24, when people were tweeting about a competing product from a company called Bolt, that Shumer posted on X that he thought Rork was better than Bolt. 'My jaw just DROPPED,' Shumer wrote in his X post. 'Rork lets you create entire iOS apps just by describing them! Zero. Code. Required. This changes everything for app development. Rork blows Bolt out of the water (and yes, I invested immediately after trying it).' Shumer also included a video of Rork. And the post blew up, viewed more than 1 million times. Usage of Rork instantly skyrocketed, too, but the founders were trapped. Each of them ran up $15,000 of debt on their credit cards to keep the app running. 'We were paying for AI out of our own pockets, basically, because we didn't raise much funding,' Dhawan said. 'We're, like, almost, out of money. And then 15 minutes after this post, Austen Allred invested $100,000.' By the end of the day of Shumer's tweet, Founder's Inc. and Hustle Fund's Yin were already ready to invest, while warm intros to other investors and angels were flying. 'So basically it was like, $350,000 that first day. And that was really, really crazy.' Out of money Although this sounds like an instant success — and by some measure, it is — it was more like rescue from a near-death experience for the founders. This was their third bootstrapped startup each; they had previously developed hit mobile apps beginning when they were teens. They are now ages 25 (Kvirkvelia) and 27 (Dhawan). But they had run through much of the cash earned by those other apps working on a Rork's predecessor, a Cursor-like vibe coder geared toward nontechnical users. Dhawan had been in San Francisco since December to attend Founders Inc. and fundraise, working through Christmas and sleeping on a mattress at a YC founder friend's apartment, while Kvirkvelia stayed home in Georgia to build the new product. Fundraising wasn't going well. Then competitor Lovable launched and went instantly viral. But their product wasn't ready to compete with Lovable. 'We had the prototype finished already, and then they launched,' Dhawan recalls. 'We were really disappointed.' So Kvirkvelia convinced Dhawan that they should change course. Rather than building another Lovable, which tackles AI web coding, they should go back to their roots and build a Lovable for mobile apps. No one had done this before — at least not well — because as hard as web development is, building native mobile apps is 'like 10 times more complicated,' Kvirkvelia told TechCrunch.. So 'we are the Lovable for Expo. The Lovable for React,' Kvirkvelia said, mentioning two popular mobile app development frameworks. Then rival startup Bolt launched a mobile vibe coding product, and the founders had deja vu, fearing they were going to be beaten out of the market again. So they launched the same day as Bolt, Dhawan said. After Shumer's tweet went viral and angels began pouring in, one of their new angels introduced the founders to Andrew Chen, the general partner running Andreessen Horowitz's new Speedrun program. Speedrun is a16z's 12-week mentorship program for early-stage startups. It includes things like $5 million worth credits from the firm's partners like AWS, Google Cloud, OpenAI, Microsoft, Nvidia, Stripe, Deel, and others. It typically invests up to $1 million, as well. Chen reached out, but Dhawan didn't jump immediately. He explained to Chen that he already had a pre-seed term sheet in hand from another firm. Chen, determined not to miss out, did his own speed run at his firm and quickly delivered a competing offer. The Rork founders accepted, nabbed their seed money, and will attend the cohort scheduled to begin on July 28. 'Daniel and Levan are highly technical polymaths who deeply understand mobile development and distribution, which has allowed them to build a fantastic platform quickly,' Chen told TechCrunch over email. 'They're exactly the type of founders we're excited to back with a16z Speedrun.' Even better than the funding, paying users are pouring in. Two months after Shumer's viral tweet, this team of two hit $550,000 ARR, Dhawan says. And he's off the floor and living in his own apartment, now, too.
