He can’t program – and yet he’s building a startup with $150,000 in sales. His product: cake.
William Lindholm is 20 years old, can’t program and still built a software startup. His tool: Vibe coding with Lovable. His product: cake.
In September 2025 he will launch “Daymaker” – a platform that automates company birthdays. Four months later, the startup says it has an ARR of $150,000. The ARR is the recurring annual revenue of a startup. And Vibe Coding means: You build software without knowing how to program. Instead of writing code, you simply tell a tool like Lovable what you want – and the AI builds it for you.
How did he come up with the idea for the cake business?
At a conference, Lindholm observes a pattern: Companies don’t fail because of strategy or budget – but because of organizing birthdays properly. Order cake, take allergies into account, deliver on time. Sounds simple, but it’s not.
The first concept for “Daymaker” emerged from this observation: The platform was intended to make company celebrations easier to plan – with a mixture of the classic bakery business, delivery in combination with software. Together with his co-founder Simon Dieu (CCO – “Chief of Cakes”) he used cold calls in the summer of 2025. They presented their business model to more than 100 executives, including KPMG.
CaaS – Cake as a Service
Here’s how it worked: Companies could either upload birthday data directly to Daymaker or connect their HR system – including preferences such as diet or allergies. Information about preferred cake size, congratulations and delivery method was provided once. The startup then automated everything: birthday reminders, orders and delivery of the celebration cake.
Daymaker’s startup team now consists of three people, but none of them had previous technical experience. Lindholm himself took care of the tech: “I programmed at night and delivered cakes during the day,” he says.
We don’t want to be a cake maker. We want to be a technology company
For the cakes, the startup initially cooperated with a pastry chef in Oslo, who baked the cakes. This went on for three months – including sleepless nights. “I built the entire back end – the tables, everything that makes the cakes flow.” He also makes it clear: “We don’t want to be a cakewalk company. We want to be a technology company.”
The fact that this was possible with vibe coding alone surprised even his mentor, “a real deep tech guy,” as Lindholm says.
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Lindholm’s recipe for success
He reveals his recipe for success in the start-up scene: “Learn to sell, learn to develop. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.”
His two most important sales tips: Be friendly and talk about things that connect you with the person you are talking to. His learning: “People like to talk about themselves.”
$150,000 ARR and Pivot in a few months
In just four months, Daymaker claims to have achieved an ARR of $150,000. The startup has now also been able to convince angel investors: the first round of financing brought in over $100,000.
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Now the startup wants to take the next step, away from the birthday business and towards customer acquisition. Daymaker wants to expand internationally, as founder William Lindholm reveals to Gründerszene. That’s why he’s currently in Silicon Valley. There he does customer acquisition with cake – most recently he visited the VCs Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed, Better Tomorrow Ventures and Index Ventures, he says.
So the cake focus remains for now: Lindholm is convinced that personalized and physical marketing is the future, like with baked goods. And that is exactly the strength of Daymarker. The startup wants to replace cold calling emails and the like. Lindholm calls it: cold caking.