Platano: Early Bird Access

Today, I’m excited to open early bird access to Platano, our most recent and most capable mobile app template.

Platano was built around one simple idea: help you build and launch mobile apps fast, with almost no setup, and turn them into real income. At the core, this is not just about code. It is about helping you get to the moments that actually matter: your first app approved, your first sale, your first users, your work published, and a stronger portfolio that proves you can actually ship.

Get access now or run the next command to a quick start:

bunx @codewithbeto/ship

Platano app preview

Why this matters right now

AI is moving incredibly fast, and the quality of image generation is reaching a point where users feel the value almost instantly. Google has done an amazing job with Nano Banana. It creates the kind of first-generation “wow” moment that makes people immediately understand the potential. The results are strong, the experience feels magical, and users genuinely love it.

What makes this even more exciting is that the number of possible use cases is huge. You can target beauty, fashion, tattoos, fitness, social content, lifestyle, education, pets, travel, home design, and so much more. This is exactly what I experienced when I started building in this space. I originally launched an AI tattoo app out of curiosity, and today it keeps generating around $500 in extra passive income per month. Beyond the revenue, it taught me something much more important: you do not really learn marketing, positioning, distribution, and social presence until you go through the process of building and shipping your own app.

And this is not just my experience. One of our members, Max, is doing around $8K USD in monthly recurring revenue with a hairstyle try-on app powered by Nano Banana. So yes, there is demand. The opportunity is real.

The reason most people never ship

The biggest problem is not ideas. It is friction.

Most developers do not fail because they cannot build. They fail because starting a new app is messy. Before you can even focus on your idea, you suddenly find yourself dealing with dependencies, navigation, localization, payments, onboarding, validations, edge cases, configuration, and all the technical setup that slows momentum down.

That is exactly the problem Platano is meant to solve.

Instead of wasting your best energy on repetitive setup work, Platano lets you jump straight into implementing your idea. My honest recommendation is simple: initialize the project, rebrand it around your niche, get it running, put it on TestFlight or the internal Google Play track, submit it for review, and start iterating from there. That is where real learning begins.

The story behind Platano

When I first launched Inkigo, I almost immediately noticed something interesting: the same app foundation could be reused for many different use cases. I wanted to see how I would look with a different outfit. I wanted to generate images from descriptions. I wanted to make infographics. I wanted to edit coffee photos and generate latte art. Very quickly, it became obvious that this was not just one app idea. It was a pattern.

That was the moment I realized there are far more niches here than most people think.

If you spend a lot of time inside tech, it is easy to start believing the market is already saturated. Everyone talks about AI all day, and it can feel like every possible idea has already been done. But the reality outside of our bubble is very different. Most people in the real world still have not used AI in any meaningful way. Developers and the tech community are a very small percentage of the total addressable market in almost any niche.

That is why I am convinced that even if there are already several apps in your category, you can still make sales. The app itself matters, of course, but once you launch, success depends much more on execution, positioning, marketing strategy, and maintaining product quality. That is also why Platano ships with strong defaults and best practices already baked in.

We built this template not only for you, but also for ourselves. I want to ship multiple AI image apps that target different niches, and I do not want to rebuild the same foundation every single time. Inkigo is generating most of its revenue organically, and I have not made any major changes to it since it became stable a couple of months ago. That is exactly the kind of leverage I want more of, and Platano is the system that makes that possible.

What Platano is optimized for?

Platano is optimized for one thing above all else: helping you ship quickly and get to your first sale faster.

It includes architectural improvements and product lessons learned after shipping Inkigo. That means features like multi-turn chat editing that you can turn on or off, a single-file configuration for key app behavior, a better developer experience overall, and built-in multilingual support with English and Spanish included from day one.

Core Platano is focused on fast shipping

This was also shaped by real feedback from people who are already building serious businesses. One of the first strong pieces of feedback I got came from Julian, the creator of Gravl, who is also a Pro member in our community. He is building at a very high level, and when we talked, he pointed out three major issues with Inkigo: no Android support, English-only support, and improvements needed for iOS 18. Those were some of the first things I tackled when building Platano.

So this is not just a random starter. It is a template shaped by real shipping experience, real user feedback, and real business needs.

Who Platano is really for

This is not only about me trying to ship more apps and grow my own passive income. I cannot possibly target every niche, and I definitely do not have the time to fully capture every opportunity in this market.

That is exactly why Platano is also built for you.

If you are reading this, you are already part of a community that cares about building real things. If you are a developer, or even just learning mobile development, and you do not yet have an app on the stores, this is your opportunity to start shipping. Having a real app in the App Store or Google Play comes with benefits that go way beyond passive income. It builds credibility. It proves you can execute. It looks amazing on a resume. It teaches you about the full development lifecycle. It pushes you to learn monetization, conversion, analytics, distribution, demographics, and how to respond to real user feedback.

Those lessons are incredibly valuable, and you do not get them by staying in tutorial mode forever.

A lot of people, including non-technical founders, are already making money from their apps. There is no reason you cannot do the same.

The technical side of Platano

Under the hood, Platano is designed to be clean, scalable, and easy to work with from day one. It uses a file-based structure with Expo Router, and all routes live inside the app folder. The codebase already includes key sections like onboarding, paywall flows, tabs, the home screen, camera view, and settings, including subscription visibility.

Because it is built with Expo Router, Platano also takes advantage of API routes. That means you do not need a second codebase just to handle backend requests. Out of the box, the template includes three API endpoints: one for text-to-image, one for text-and-image-to-image, and one for multi-turn generation.

We made an intentional early decision to launch without authentication by default, because auth adds friction and the goal of Platano is to help you validate ideas quickly. At the same time, the template still includes middleware-based API protection through Expo Router. It is not bulletproof, but it does help protect your routes from random abuse. I still strongly recommend setting a hard budget in Google AI Studio for safety. Personally, I use a $300 max budget so I always know my upper limit.

The route files themselves are kept very clean. Most of the actual implementation lives inside dedicated screen folders, which helps keep navigation simple and makes reuse much easier. Inside the components folder, each screen also has its own component grouping, so the codebase stays intuitive as it grows.

There is also a core folder that contains the AI provider logic, mutations, and API implementation. I generally recommend not changing this part unless you really need to, because it makes future updates easier. If we improve the core in the future or add support for other providers beyond Gemini, you will be in a much better position to pull those updates into your own project.

Every functionality you need to ship, ready to go

Multi-language support from the start

Localization is a huge deal if you want to reach users in multiple countries, and it is one of the things developers often postpone until it becomes painful.

Platano includes a clean i18n structure and ships with both English and Spanish by default. It also comes with commands that make adding new languages easier. Users can switch languages directly from the settings screen, or you can load the device language automatically. This gives you a much stronger starting point if you want to launch internationally from day one.

Image generation and performance

One of the areas where many AI image apps go wrong is performance. If you are not careful, it is easy to create an app that feels heavy, fragile, or frustrating to use.

Platano handles image generation with a local caching strategy using Expo File System, Expo Media Library, and Expo SQLite. Every time a user adds an image to the generation flow, that image is cached locally on the device. This creates a much better experience. If the user closes and reopens the app, the image is still there. The same is true for generations, which means users do not lose work just because they forgot to save before leaving.

When users decide to save generated images, Platano can store them directly on the device and organize them into a photo album, which you can also configure from one place. It supports multi-image input up to 14 images in a single message, and that limit can also be changed from a single file. The template already handles sharing, photo selection, camera support, and image flow into Nano Banana generation.

All of this matters because a good AI app is not just about model quality. It is about the full user experience.

Image generation flow with caching, gallery, and multi-image inputs

Reviewed by Shai Alon

One thing I am especially happy about is that Shai Alon, a Google Cloud engineer who helps startups build with AI, reviewed the Platano codebase and provided a detailed report focused on Nano Banana API usage and implementation quality.

A lot of his feedback has already been applied. That includes improvements around response modalities, model thinking configuration, thought signatures, reference image limits, and other important details that can become very relevant as your app scales or expands in scope.

This matters because you are not just getting a personal starter project from me. You are getting something that has already been looked at through a more serious technical lens and improved accordingly. Shai is also in our Discord, so if you are building with Platano and have questions, that is another layer of value available to you.

Key feedback from Shai Alon's technical review

Monetization is already built in

Platano ships with RevenueCat already integrated, because monetization should not be something you leave for later.

You can turn the paywall flow off if you just want to move quickly and test the app. Or you can connect your RevenueCat setup and start testing subscriptions immediately. The template gives you flexibility around how you want to monetize. You can require a free trial before users start generating, charge before any generation happens, or allow a limited number of free generations first.

That is exactly what I do in Inkigo: one free generation, then the user has to pay. In Platano, you can control that behavior from configuration. The paywall mode also supports multiple styles: a hard paywall that cannot be dismissed, a soft paywall that appears with a delayed dismiss button, and a fully dismissible version. My personal recommendation is still the soft version, because it balances conversion and user comfort well.

RevenueCat paywall setups and free generation limits

Agent-friendly by design

One of the things I really wanted to do with Platano was go beyond just giving you a template. I wanted to make it easier to use for both technical developers and people who are increasingly building with AI.

That is why Platano is designed to be agent-friendly.

It works with Ship, our CLI for initializing applications using Platano. Once you install the skill, you can prompt Claude with something like, “Let’s create an app with Platano,” and it can guide you through the setup, naming, and configuration process. The template also includes commands and skills for adding languages, configuring monetization, customizing onboarding, rebranding the app, and explaining parts of the codebase.

There is also support for the Building Native UI skill from the Expo team, which helps when adding new screens, features, and UI using best practices. Even if you are technical, using Platano this way can save you a lot of time.

Community matters

One of the biggest reasons I am excited about Platano is that this is not something you have to figure out alone.

We have a Discord community where people are sharing changelogs, shipping progress, optimizations, marketing ideas, and conversion strategies. If you are building with Platano, or even just considering it, being part of that loop is a huge advantage. You learn faster when you can see what is working for others, and you avoid making the same mistakes in isolation.

We are in this together. Even if two people are building in similar markets, the opportunity is still large enough for both to win.

Early bird access - 50% off lifetime access

If you are already a Pro member, you already have access to Platano and can start shipping right now with:

bunx @codewithbeto/ship

If you are only interested in Platano, now is the best moment to get in. Early bird access is live, and it comes with 50% off lifetime access for a limited time.

You also get access to the repository through the Code with Beto GitHub organization, and if you jump in now, you will be part of the earliest wave of builders using Platano in the real world.

Get access now

What’s next

We are not stopping here.

Figma templates and App Store asset kits are coming soon, along with more improvements designed to help you not just build faster, but launch better.

Platano is meant to be a real shipping system, not just a codebase. The goal is simple: reduce friction, increase speed, help you launch, and help you learn what it actually takes to build an app people want.

If you have been waiting for the right moment to stop overthinking and start shipping, this is it.