Live Vibe Coding | Engagement Widgets, Shopify Build + AI Internship Platform for Small Business

By Will Melton · June 13, 2026 · 1:00:19 read

Category: Business & Economy

Show: Live Vibe Coding With Will Melton

Today's live build is one of the widest sessions yet in the 52 Apps in 52 Weeks challenge. We're starting with the engagement widget originally built for Channel RVA (channelrva.com) and expanding it

Today's live build is one of the widest sessions yet in the 52 Apps in 52 Weeks challenge. We're starting with the engagement widget originally built for Channel RVA (channelrva.com) and expanding it into a reusable multi-site component — a mini real player that surfaces video content dynamically right on the homepage. This is rolling out across several properties in the Xponent21 ecosystem (xponent21.com), making content more discoverable without forcing users to navigate away.

From there, we're building a full Shopify e-commerce store with a drop-shipping partner — live, in real time, using Lovable as the frontend layer. If you haven't tried Lovable yet, grab 10 free credits at https://lovable.dev/invite/S8XSI99 and build alongside us. Product catalog, checkout flow, the works — built from scratch on stream.

We're also tightening engagement and conversion mechanics across several active sites — better information visibility, stronger calls to action, and user journey improvements that directly impact how people interact with and return to these platforms.

The build with the most urgency today is an AI-powered internship platform for small businesses. This started as an internal tool at Xponent21 and is expanding into a public community resource supporting AI Ready RVA. Yesterday I met with Senator Mark Warner, who challenged our group directly: identify jobs most at risk of AI displacement and build the career pathways before workers are left behind. One of the sharpest gaps is workplace experience. Young people need internships to build skills. Small businesses want to offer them but don't have HR infrastructure to run a program. We're building the fix — any small business, a few clicks, an internship program deployed and published to a public directory. This build continues tomorrow. The urgency is real.

Everything is live and unpolished. Lovable, Supabase, Claude API, Resend, Shopify. Come build at studio.willmelton.com.

studio.willmelton.com

https://lovable.dev/invite/S8XSI99 — 10 free Lovable credits

channelrva.com

onscreengames.com

xponent21.com

willmelton.com