What a Flooded Basement and Airbnb Taught Me About Software

And How Replit Helped Me Finally Get Started

Over the past few years, the basement in my house has flooded. Twice. This is Seattle, so rain is expected—but twice? Really? The repair bills were painful, but they also gave me an idea: why not turn the basement into an Airbnb to cover some costs?

The Airbnb isn’t glamorous. It doesn’t have the best backyard and the finishes are… fine. And, honestly, there are times when it’s not spotless. But it’s mine and we get plenty of guests. And as anyone who’s run an Airbnb knows, hosting takes real work. Folding endless piles of laundry, fixing the vacuum for the fifth time, answering late-night messages like _“Does the toaster also work as a waffle maker?” —it adds up.

What really frustrates me, though, is the chunk Airbnb takes in fees. I get that marketplaces need to make money, but after everything I do to keep the unit running, losing that extra percentage stings. So I started thinking: What if I didn’t need Airbnb? What if I could build a direct booking site where potential guests could learn about the property and book directly with me?

Sounds simple, right? I’ve worked in software for 15 years. How hard could it be? But then the excuses started piling up:

• I’m not a front-end developer. CSS still feels like witchcraft and designing something marketable sounds tedious.

• The last time I started a project like this I stumbled back out of my office with two days of facial stubble and a hatred of Javascript frameworks. I spent the whole time floating through black hole after black hole of time sinks: outdated documentation, broken dependencies, and half-finished tutorials.

• And honestly? I’m lazy. The idea of designing, building, and deploying a functional website from scratch just seemed… annoyingly close to my day job.

But after months of putting it off, I finally found a tool that changed the game: Replit.

Replit: The Tool That Finally Got Me Moving

For those who haven’t heard of it, Replit is an online coding platform that helps you take an idea from “what if” to working app with minimal effort. It’s an all-in-one browser-based IDE that handles everything: dependency management, database provisioning, deployments, and they’ve even added an AI Agent that can write code, fix bugs, and speed up development.

The promise sounded almost too good to be true, but I figured it was worth a shot. Could Replit help me build a functional direct booking site in just a few hours?

What Worked (And What Impressed Me Most)

The AI Agent turned out to be the star of the show. I started by describing my idea—a direct booking site for my Airbnb—and it helped me break that idea into manageable tasks. Within seconds, I had a basic site up and running, complete with a simple UI and database integration.

After a few prompts, the AI had also:

• Added an admin login page so I could upload photos and update property details.

• Created a guest info database that stored bookings.

• Built a simple gallery to showcase the unit’s photos.

Here’s the thing: none of this was revolutionary. I could have built this myself in maybe 3–4 hours. But would I have? Definitely not. Replit didn’t just save me time— it removed the friction of getting started.

How many ideas have been left to rot because the inertia of starting felt like too much?

What Didn’t Work (And Where Replit Fell Short)

While I’m impressed with Replit’s ability to simplify the coding process, it’s not perfect. Here are a few pain points I ran into:

The AI Agent Isn’t Always Reliable

When I asked it to add login functionality, it enthusiastically told me it had—after making a commit that only removed a few debug statements I’d added earlier. (That little mistake cost me $1.25, since the AI Agent charges per task.) After some back-and-forth, I finally poked it enough to create a database to store login credentials, but the process felt clunky.

Public Deployments and Database Pain

Dropping and re-provisioning a database locally was easy. But when I tried to do the same for the public deployment, I hit a wall. Replit’s AI Agent and Assistant both tried to help, but their “fixes” just moved debug statements around or added irrelevant database configs. Eventually, I figured out the problem: the public deployment has its own Secret Manager that didn’t automatically update when I created a new database. This feels like a pretty common problem, to the point I’m surprised the AI assistant couldn’t just fix this, or at least tell me this was a potential problem.

Lag Between Tasks

When the AI Agent completes a task, there’s often a lag before the updated code appears. This led to a few frustrating moments where I was debugging old code that was no longer relevant.

Why I’ll Keep Using Replit (For Now)

Despite these annoyances, I’m sticking with Replit for one simple reason: it makes getting started ridiculously easy. The CEO of Replit, Amjad Masad, recently said on the My First Million podcast [@ 40:48]:

“This is the worst [Replit] will ever be.”

That’s an optimistic way of looking at the future, but it’s the right mindset. Replit isn’t perfect, but its rapid prototyping tools are enough to keep me as a subscriber for now.

The AI features, while imperfect, removed enough friction to help me finally bring my idea to life. And honestly, that’s the hardest part of any side project: crossing the gap between _idea_ and _execution._

Final Thoughts: Why Replit Might Be Your Next Step

If you’ve been sitting on a side project because the setup feels a little too close to your day job, Replit might be exactly what you need. It’s not going to replace a dedicated developer or a fully custom stack, but for rapid 0-to-1 development, it’s a game changer.

For anyone interested in giving it a try, here’s my advice: start small. Pick an idea you’ve been procrastinating on and see how far Replit can take you in an afternoon.

What about you? What tools have you used to jumpstart your projects? Any frustrations or success stories? Let me know—I’d love to hear them.