From Employee to Founder: The Real Journey Behind Menuvivo

April 6, 2025 - 13 minutes read - 2665 words

The Day I Became a Founder

On the 21st of March 2025 I took a decision: it’s time to start building Menuvivo - my first SaaS application. The next day I woke up at 5:20 AM, and I wrote the first line of code…

That was the day when I started my journey as a founder for good. But the incubation of the founder in me took much more time…

Where It Really Began

First vague thoughts about my own business started to appear in my head somewhere in 2016–2017. I was already a senior java developer and a team leader back then with 10 years of commercial experience in software delivery. I earned enough to live a comfortable life, and I was doing well in my job. But there was something off. Occasionally I’d disagree with decisions made by my management. I knew a better way of doing things, but I was not in charge.

I decided that “some day” I’ll build my own company, and that till then I need to learn as much as possible to prepare myself.

I was aware of my weaknesses. I earned some leadership skills already, but I was still kind of introverted, nerdy backend developer. Imagine a guy who started programming around age of 12, and who was also administrating Linux server since then, who prefers talking to computers rather than to real people. :)

I knew that building a company is not only about technology and programming. Real people are the heart of any business.

I decided I need to learn different aspects of business and technology as much as I can. I started to read books about startups, entrepreneurship, finances, psychology, and business in general. I managed my career, so I could get more practical experience in project management, leadership, business, products, etc. I also decided to work on my character, mindset and habits to become a better, more communicative and more productive person.

I virtually designed who I need to become to be a successful entrepreneur and then year by year executed this design.

The Push That Lit the Fire

Besides a clear idea that some day I’ll be an entrepreneur, I didn’t have any specific idea for a business. Time passed by, knowledge and experience accumulated, and my golden cage where I was doing 9-5 job became more and more comfortable…

Then at the New Year’s Eve on 1st of Jan 2024 I took my new year resolution: I want to own my own business. Can’t remember right now what was the exact trigger but I think it was the advertisement of Bogusz Pękalski SaaS Academy course. In the advertisement there was a guy (Bogusz) talking about changing from regular software developer that is bored of doing the same thing over and over again into an entrepreneur. It was exactly what was on my mind and I decided to sign up for his webinar “How to build a SaaS business in 2024 - from idea to paying customers”.

This webinar blew my mind. I was burnt out, and I was striving for freedom. I immediately signed up for the course and started learning and planning the real business.

My First Shot: Fubito.com

On the morning of the 10th of January 2024, I lost my job. It was effective immediately. The company I worked at shut down. I was shocked—it was the first time in my life I lost a job.

But I thought to myself—this is the sign from the universe. I doubled my efforts and started to work on creating my own business and growing my skills in SaaS building from the SaaS Academy course.

What I learned from the course was that it’s better to start immediately and learn on the go rather than wait for the perfect idea. I did not have a specific idea, and I thought of scheduling for hairdressers and beauty salons. It sounded straightforward from a technical perspective. There’s Booksy out there, so the business model is proven. What could go wrong? I called the project Fubito.

Shortly after I’ve prepared a landing page, wait list newsletter and started working on that idea. And it was all going wrong.

Building landing page turned out to be hard for me. I decided to use WordPress for that, but I was focusing on backend and architecture my whole life, so UI and web were not my strong side. Graphics and visual design were a nightmare. Preparing “marketing” content turned out to be harder than implementing a new microservice. :)

Finally, the landing page was out, and the newsletter was up and running. I did some marketing and started working on design and implementation.

I quickly realized that with my poor UI skills, I won’t be able to build a product and I could not afford to hire a designer. So I bought some courses on udemy about React and UI/UX design and started learning and meantime building backend and UI of Fubito.

I was having super slow progress - UI was tough for me, but I was pushing forward and actually enjoyed learning new stuff.

But the time passed, my money savings were shrinking, and I felt more and more pressure. It was clear that I’m not able to build a profitable product in a reasonable time, so I decided to find a job. Beginning of April, I became an employee again. I really enjoyed the new job. I joined a great team, faced many new challenges and learned a lot.

Same time, my Fubito wait list was a disaster. I had literally only 1 subscriber who was from SaaS Academy where I shared the idea. This was not so easy business as I thought (or I was doing it wrong? 🤦). I decided to kill the project and focus on my job.

Planting the Seed for Menuvivo

So I was again a happy employee, but I was still thinking about my own business that would solve some real problems and would make the world a better place.

For a long time I was thinking about an app that would help in meal planning, grocery, and food waste reduction. Back in 2019, I created a small Google Form-based survey where I described some problems I see (and I face daily) and asked for audience ideas and feedback about app that would solve them. I collected feedback from around 30 people (not much marketing—just simple Facebook post), and it confirmed that I’m not alone with meal planning problems. But then it was just an idea that I put on the shelf among other great ideas.

On the 6th of July 2024 I was on a trip with my wife Kasia, and we were sitting on the bank of the Vistula in Warsaw and talked about the future. For some days already the idea of meal planning app was showing up in our discussions, and that day we decided to take it seriously.

While still sitting at the bank of Vistula and admiring the sunset, I bought the Menuvivo.com domain.

I started to work on the idea, and I was super excited about it. I took some lessons from the Fubito project, and I decided to only do the landing page and try some marketing and brand building before I write a single line of code.

For the next few months I was working on blog posts, social media, and building the brand. I also took some time PoC the image recognition with AI, and I was super excited to learn that AI is able to nicely recognize the food on the images.

The wait list was slowly growing. I translated Menuvivo blog into multiple languages using some of the AI tools I created. This was generating some traffic but honestly, not much.

Meantime I decided to learn more about AI and in November 2024 I signed up for the AI Devs course by Adam Gospodarczyk, Mateusz Chrobok, and Jakub Mrugalski.

This course was a game changer for me. It was super intensive, and consumed my whole free time, but I completed it on 13th of January 2025. It enabled me to effectively use AI tools in my daily work.

With the new skills and tools in my hand, I knew I could use them to build a product. January and February were challenging months for me for personal reasons, but I was slowly planning the Menuvivo App. I prepared lots of documentation describing features, built a roadmap, some designs etc.

And then I had a crazy idea… :)

A Tempting Detour: Planora.ai

While working on Menuvivo backlog, I was using intensively AI tools to generate the documentation. I prepared several handy prompts (thanks to Adam Gospodarczyk meta prompt) that helped me to refine my roadmap, backlog, features, and user stories.

And then it hit me. I’m working 17 years in software development, and in nearly all the projects I was involved in the following problems were present:

Requirements were not documented properly
Prioritization was not always following the business vision, mission and goals and teams were working on the wrong things
Implementation was starting before the requirements were clear causing rework and waste
Requirements were not clear or changing
Details are being discussed in meetings and not documented properly and there is no single source of truth
… add more.

And I thought to myself—this is it! My simple prompts prove that AI can help with all of that. It just needs to be able to work on the wider context and update the documents and backlog correctly.

I did some research and discovered that there are no such tools on the market.

On the 23rd of February 2025 I bought the domain Planora.ai. I prepared the landing page and wait list shortly after, and started planning the work and designing the app.

I decided to take a week off from work to focus on the project and build the MVP. I planned it from the 28st of March to the 6th of April.

The Pivot That Brought Me Back

I was super excited about the Planora.ai idea, and I was sure that this is it. But when the initial excitement faded away, and the fire went a bit down, I started to hesitate, and think again. I reminded how I started building Fubito and no-one was interested in it.

I also started to think how I would do marketing of Planora.ai, and sell it? This is definitely my domain, and I’m totally passionate about software delivery. I could talk to my customers easily about it and understand their needs. But convincing companies to change their processes and use AI to help them with that may be hard task. So maybe it’s better to start with something that is easier to sell and also solves a real problem?

On the other hand, I had proof that people are interested in Menuvivo. After a long inner battle in my head, I decided to pivot again. On the 21st of March 2025 I took a decision to focus on Menuvivo App and put Planora.ai on hold.

If you’re interested in the Planora.ai idea, then join the wait list. I do not abandon it completely, and I will come back to it in the future if it turns out there’s a demand. If you join the wait list, I will keep you updated about the project.

Menuvivo in 15 Days

I’be been working on Menuvivo for the last 15 days. I’ve managed to implement a simple MVP that allows user to take a photo of the fridge, let Menuvivo recognize the food ingredients on the image and propose what can be cooked out of it. Recognition logic is mocked and there isn’t any real AI behind it yet. But flow works and I can show it to my friends and family. It works as a installable PWA. Here’s how it looks like at 2025-04-06:

Feel free to give it a try and share feedback using the assistant chat in the app.

Who I’ve Become Along the Way

If you told me a few years ago that I’d be waking up at 5:00 AM every day, writing blog posts, designing user interfaces, and building a SaaS product solo—I’d probably laugh.

But here I am.

I’ve become someone who doesn’t wait for the perfect moment. I act, even if I’m unsure. I launch, even if it’s messy. I build, even if I feel like I’m not ready.

I’ve grown out of the comfort zone of being just a backend developer. I’ve touched design, UX, marketing, analytics, and AI—and realized they’re not some mythical disciplines, just skills I can learn, like everything else.

I’ve also learned to trust myself more. That little inner voice telling me “this idea is worth it” now gets my attention. I don’t overthink as much. I move. I learn. I ship.

Most importantly—I don’t do it alone. I want to say thank you to the people who helped shape who I am now:

Dan Martell – His YouTube channel and book gave me frameworks for momentum, discipline, and vision. “Buy back your time” was a huge mindset shift.
Bogusz Pękalski – His SaaS Academy course was the push I needed to take action. Clear, real, and very practical. His podcast Startup My Way is also full of great stories and lessons from real founders.
Mariusz Gil – His LinkedIn post about daily commits planted the idea of showing up consistently. That’s how I started my own daily commit routine: see GitLab. Also, his podcast Better Software Design is a goldmine of insights—technical and personal.
Adam Gospodarczyk, Mateusz Chrobok, Jakub Mrugalski – Their AI Devs course was a turning point. I finally felt that I had tools to build something meaningful.
Tomasz Mazur – His podcast Ze stoickim spokojem helped me embrace stoic thinking. It gave me a mindset that makes handling challenges and setbacks much easier.
My wife Kasia – She listened to all my crazy ideas, calmed me down when I panicked, and pushed me forward when I doubted. None of this would exist without her.
My family – For patience, love, and support. I needed all of it.

I’m not done growing. I still have much to learn, and I want to keep evolving. But today, I feel like a founder. For real.

What’s Next (And What I’m Building Toward)

In the next weeks, I’ll continue building Menuvivo — the real version, not just a demo.

My goal is simple:

Help people stop wasting food
Make daily cooking easier and faster
Use AI to reduce the decision fatigue around “what to cook today?”

I’ll keep iterating based on user feedback. I’ll launch features, test them, and improve. I want this to be a product that actually helps people—not just another app that looks cool but solves nothing.

I also want to keep building in public. I’ll share the progress, the mistakes, the wins, the doubts. All of it. Because the journey matters as much as the result. Follow me on LinkedIn to get updates about my weekly founder journey update and check my weekly founder log.

And yes—Planora.ai is not dead. It’s on hold. If Menuvivo succeeds and I have time or a team to help, I’ll come back to it. I still believe it can change how teams handle product work.

Long term? I want to build more tools. More useful SaaS products. Things that solve real problems. That make life a bit easier, a bit better.

This is only the beginning. I’ll keep building — and sharing every step of the way. Join me in my journey and follow me on LinkedIn or X/Twitter.