📍 Current Location: Bangkok, Thailand 🇹🇭👷🏼 Working on: Automated Social Media Content Tooling, Ad Account Management📅 Availability: 🟢 Contract based development work🎶 Listening to: Tuscany - John Carroll Kirby📚 Reading: The Beach - Alex Garland, The Fourth Turning - Neil Howe and William Strauss🧑‍🏫 Learning: How to use AI for learning languages, Spanish, Muay Thai😄 Enjoying: Swimming in the sea, Pad kra pao📍 Current Location: Bangkok, Thailand 🇹🇭👷🏼 Working on: Automated Social Media Content Tooling, Ad Account Management📅 Availability: 🟢 Contract based development work🎶 Listening to: Tuscany - John Carroll Kirby📚 Reading: The Beach - Alex Garland, The Fourth Turning - Neil Howe and William Strauss🧑‍🏫 Learning: How to use AI for learning languages, Spanish, Muay Thai😄 Enjoying: Swimming in the sea, Pad kra pao📍 Current Location: Bangkok, Thailand 🇹🇭👷🏼 Working on: Automated Social Media Content Tooling, Ad Account Management📅 Availability: 🟢 Contract based development work🎶 Listening to: Tuscany - John Carroll Kirby📚 Reading: The Beach - Alex Garland, The Fourth Turning - Neil Howe and William Strauss🧑‍🏫 Learning: How to use AI for learning languages, Spanish, Muay Thai😄 Enjoying: Swimming in the sea, Pad kra pao📍 Current Location: Bangkok, Thailand 🇹🇭👷🏼 Working on: Automated Social Media Content Tooling, Ad Account Management📅 Availability: 🟢 Contract based development work🎶 Listening to: Tuscany - John Carroll Kirby📚 Reading: The Beach - Alex Garland, The Fourth Turning - Neil Howe and William Strauss🧑‍🏫 Learning: How to use AI for learning languages, Spanish, Muay Thai😄 Enjoying: Swimming in the sea, Pad kra pao📍 Current Location: Bangkok, Thailand 🇹🇭👷🏼 Working on: Automated Social Media Content Tooling, Ad Account Management📅 Availability: 🟢 Contract based development work🎶 Listening to: Tuscany - John Carroll Kirby📚 Reading: The Beach - Alex Garland, The Fourth Turning - Neil Howe and William Strauss🧑‍🏫 Learning: How to use AI for learning languages, Spanish, Muay Thai😄 Enjoying: Swimming in the sea, Pad kra pao📍 Current Location: Bangkok, Thailand 🇹🇭👷🏼 Working on: Automated Social Media Content Tooling, Ad Account Management📅 Availability: 🟢 Contract based development work🎶 Listening to: Tuscany - John Carroll Kirby📚 Reading: The Beach - Alex Garland, The Fourth Turning - Neil Howe and William Strauss🧑‍🏫 Learning: How to use AI for learning languages, Spanish, Muay Thai😄 Enjoying: Swimming in the sea, Pad kra pao
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Mealll

Discover, Create and Plan Delicious Meals

TLDR

Mealll is an AI powered recipe creation and meal planning app.

I created it in response to my own struggles knowning what to eat and planning healthy meals. I thought developing the app would be a great chance for me to learn to work with AI APIs and learn mobile development.


Context

Client / Project Type: Startup


This project began when I returned back to the UK after 6 months of Thailand. In Thailand, I was very fortunate to be able to access healthy food easily and cheaply from any of the wonderful restaurants available. In the UK this was not so easy meaning I had to cook. Unfortunately, I'm not great at cooking.


I began using ChatGPT to help me plan healthy meals, and thought to myself, this could be a cool mobile app!


Implementation

The Mealll app has two core components. A frontend built using React Native and an ExpressJS backend that makes calls to the OpenAI api. Users can store recipes and plans they like offline using an SQLite database.


Challenges & Solutions

This was the first mobile app that I launched. The first challenge for me to overcome was the testing requirements for independent developers on the Google Play Store.


Fortunately, I found a testing group on Reddit where people test one another's apps to hit the required number of testers.


The main technical challenge was creating a prompt structure of the AI api calls which struck a balance between speed for the user, and detail in recipes and meal plans. By using a combination of different models available, I was able to strike a balance between speed and performance.


Tools & Stack

App: React Native AI: OpenAI DB: SQLite Backend: ExpressJS Payments: RevenueCat


Links

Mealll

© William Etheridge 2025