A Year-Old Idea, Built in Six Weeks - Branden Mooney
Mar 13, 2026Inside our AI Upgrade for PR & Comms cohort, Branden Mooney shipped Pulse.
A full live chat platform for real-time event conversations. Vibe-coded in Lovable. User accounts, searchable rooms by sport and league, GIF API, trending algorithm, mobile-first, deployed live. He dropped the URL in the chat during his capstone presentation. His classmates signed up and started using it while he was still talking.
This idea had been rattling around his head for a year. He built it in six weeks.
The Idea That Wouldn't Shut Up
Branden Mooney had been carrying Pulse around for the better part of a year. The observation was dead obvious. Millions of people watch the Super Bowl, the Oscars, the Winter Olympics. They're already talking about it. Reddit threads, Twitter, Instagram stories, group chats blowing up. All of it fragmented across a dozen platforms that weren't designed for the moment.
He wanted one place. Create a room for whatever's happening right now, share the link, people show up and talk about it live.
The idea kept nagging him. He just didn't have the tools to pull it off.
What He Actually Built
Branden signed up for our AI Upgrade for PR & Comms cohort. Six weeks later he had a deployed product.
Pulse. Vibe-coded entirely in Lovable. Full user accounts and sign-up flow. Room creation with searchable tags by sport, league, team. A GIF API so the chat feels like Twitch. Pinned messages. Emoji reactions. Participant counter. A trending algorithm ranking rooms by message volume in the last ten minutes. Profile customization. Shareable direct URLs you can drop into a group chat so people land right in the room. Mobile-first because that's where everyone's watching the game.
He ran a full code review in Claude the week before his presentation. Then pushed it live.
He Dropped the Link Mid-Demo
Branden put the URL in the chat while he was still walking through the slides. His classmates signed up, created accounts, started poking around the platform in real time. While he was presenting. The thing worked.
He already has a roadmap. Live score API integrations. Trivia and gamification. Moderation tools for scale. The core is deployed. Anyone can go use it right now.
Where the Idea Came From
He told the story during the Q&A. He'd been watching an illegal UFC stream and noticed the chat. Thousands of people on some sketchy website going absolutely wild in a chatroom during the fight. Raw, unfiltered energy. That energy exists everywhere live events happen. Nobody had built a proper home for it.
Branden learned Lovable, Claude, and GitHub in a course designed for communications professionals. Then he aimed those same tools at a consumer product idea he'd been sitting on for a year and shipped it. Vibe coding doesn't care what your job title says.
What's Next
The AI Upgrade for PR & Comms runs live cohorts throughout the year. Six weeks of hands-on coaching from Pete Pachal (Fast Company, Media Copilot), Peter Bittner (UC Berkeley), and Kris Krüg (BC + AI Ecosystem Association). You walk out with a working tool and a crew of comms professionals who are all building.
Bring a real problem. Or that idea you've been carrying around too long.
Check out upcoming cohorts at The AI Upgrade.
Kris Krüg is co-founder of The Upgrade Academy, recovering photographer, and professional instigator of creative chaos. He's spent 20+ years watching technology either amplify or stifle human potential. He's chosen amplification.
Peter Bittner entrepreneur, AI product thinker, new media journalist, and UC Berkeley lecturer, is the methodical yin to Kris's creative yang, turning chaos into deployable systems. Together, they've empowered hundreds of professionals.
