Live Vibe Coding: Watch Me Build a Referral Partner Portal with AI
By Will Melton · October 10, 2026 · 1:17:47 read
Category: Business & Economy
Show: Live Vibe Coding With Will Melton
Watch a referral partner portal get built live with Lovable, Supabase, and Claude: tiers, training, email drafts, promotions, and a partner dashboard. Today's live vibe coding session is a referral pa
Watch a referral partner portal get built live with Lovable, Supabase, and Claude: tiers, training, email drafts, promotions, and a partner dashboard.
Today's live vibe coding session is a referral partner platform for Xponent21. Referral partners are people in the Richmond business community who introduce us to companies that need what we do. They get one place to learn who we are, see what we sell, hand prospects free tools, and track what they earn. We build the whole thing live in Lovable, with Supabase for the database and authentication and the Claude API for draft help. If you want to build along, start with Lovable and get 10 free credits here: https://lovable.dev/invite/S8XSI99
WHAT GOES INTO THE PORTAL
- A referral agreement with e-signature, training modules, and a Spot the Fit game that teaches partners which referrals are worth sending.
- A multi-tier commission structure based on closed revenue, plus a separate higher tier for Xponent21 sales staff and invited sales partners.
- A catalog covering agency services (AI visibility, SEO, content, strategy), technology (websites, customer portals, e-commerce, workflow automation, internal apps), and media (Channel RVA podcasts, newsletter, social posts, creator collaborations, plus Richmond Water refill stations and fountains).
- Ideal client profiles, a client list, and project case studies so partners understand what Xponent21 does and who it does it for.
- Free tools partners can hand to prospects to start a relationship at no cost: Liberating Facilitator, CARL Intelligence, OnScreenGames conversion widgets, and the Visibility Lab, a rolling AI visibility workshop.
- A fit gate that blocks referrals for businesses with no budget, businesses that want to trade instead of buy, and creative partnerships with no paid component.
- Pre-written email drafts matched to what a contact is a fit for. Partners copy a draft and send it from their own email.
- A weekly digest, promotions on the partner dashboard, and a first promotion that pays $50 for every perfect fit nominated to the Visibility Lab.
- A home page hero and a partner dashboard designed to look finished, because both go on screen today.
HOW THE LOGIC WORKS
Commission is calculated from collected revenue on the line items in Xponent21 Grow, our CRM. Every referral writes a deal into Grow, and attribution starts at the first free touch, such as a tracked link click or a Visibility Lab nomination. That means a partner still gets credit when a deal closes months after the first introduction. We also cover role-based access with Supabase row-level security, so partners see only their own referrals, sales staff see their own deals, and admins see everything.
WHO THIS SESSION IS FOR
Founders, agency owners, sales leaders, and operators who want to see how a partner program gets built from scratch with AI: the data model, the tier math, the fit rules, the dashboard, and the emails. If you are learning vibe coding, you will see a full multi-role app go from prompt to working product, including where the AI agent needs exact instructions and where we step in.
THE STACK
- Lovable for the build and the design system
- Supabase for authentication, Postgres, row-level security, edge functions, and scheduled jobs
- Claude API for tightening email drafts
- Resend for email to partners and staff
- Xponent21 Grow for deals, payments, and commission calculations
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
- How to structure a referral program with tiers, attribution windows, and promotions
- How to write a prompt for a full application shell in one pass
- How to design a landing page hero that works as a cover image
- How to build rules that keep bad-fit referrals out of your pipeline
- How to connect a partner portal to a CRM
THE SERIES
This session is part of 52 Apps in 52 Weeks, a public build challenge where we ship a real app every week, live. We stream Saturdays at 1 PM EST and Sundays at 10 AM EST at https://studio.willmelton.com. Bring your questions and your own ideas for a partner or referral program.
ABOUT THE HOST
Will Melton founded Xponent21 in 2015 in Richmond, Virginia. Xponent21 is an AI adoption and innovation agency. Will also runs Channel RVA, a local independent media platform, builds OnScreenGames, and teaches at the University of Richmond.
LINKS
Live studio and schedule: https://studio.willmelton.com
Lovable (get 10 free credits): https://lovable.dev/invite/S8XSI99
Channel RVA: https://channelrva.com
OnScreenGames: https://onscreengames.com
Xponent21: https://xponent21.com
Will Melton: https://willmelton.com