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  STARTER KIT + 9-LESSON COURSE

Own the stack.
Keep the margin.

Launch your own AI character app — the same face in any scene, payments built in so you can charge from day one. It runs on infrastructure you own; no rented image API eating your margin.

That demo is this kit, deployed as-is — sign in and generate a character yourself. Free credits, no card.
$249 founding price — first 50 builders, then $299
RunPod serverless GPU Next.js + Postgres deploy as-is AI-first — built for Claude Code 45+ languages — written course
app.yourdomain.com  ● live
The OwnStack app: a My Characters dashboard with a dog, a robot, and a person
// your app, your GCP + RunPod — not a demo on someone else's dime
The hard part, solved

One face. Every scene.

Not a seed trick. OwnStack generates one base image, then edits from that base as the reference — so every new scene keeps the same character.

STAGE 1
Generate the base

A text-to-image model casts the character once — the canonical face.

STAGE 2
Edit from the base

Every scene is a reference-guided edit of that base. Same face, new pose, new place.

RESULT
20 scenes, one identity

People, anime, animals, robots — a character is not only a person.

same character · different scenes  consistent ✓
Biscuit, the base character — a small dog in a blue sweater
base
The same dog running across a park
same face · running
The same dog wearing a bandana in grass
same face · bandana
The same dog leaping for a tennis ball
same face · fetch
// generate one base → edit into any scene, face intact
Get the kit →
$249 founding price — first 50 builders, then $299
What you get

A deployable product, not a boilerplate.

Free templates give you the UI. OwnStack gives you the hard part — the infrastructure, the async job pipeline, and the character-consistency engine that actually makes it work.

01 / ENGINE

Serverless GPU worker

A 2-stage image engine on RunPod: scale-to-zero, cold-start-optimized, model baked into the image. You own the container.

02 / APP

Full-stack Next.js app

Character wizard, gallery, async job queue with polling, Google login, credits, mobile-first UI. Ships production-ready.

03 / COURSE

9 lessons, end to end

Not just code — the how. GPU serverless, the async queue, cost/margin tuning, deploy. The part boilerplates skip.

The reason AI wrappers don't make money

Most AI apps rent an image API and watch it eat the profit.

Rent a hosted image API — margin shrinks with every generation.
Vendor sets the price, the model, the rate limit. You don't own the pipeline.
OwnStack ships a self-hosted serverless GPU pipeline. You pay GPU-seconds, scale to zero, keep the spread.
Do the math yourself

When does self-hosting actually win?

Honest answer: at low volume, a hosted API is the right call. Drag your monthly volume and watch where the lines cross — every number is editable, defaults are July-2026 list prices (sources below).

Images / month1,000
drag: 0 – 10,000
Hosted API / month
Self-hosted / month
break-even: –

Self-hosted cost per image right now: . APIs also bill extra for reference-image edits; self-hosting pays a cold-start tax unless engineered away — the kit's cost chapter is exactly that.

Get the kit →

List prices, checked July 2026: RunPod — 24 GB serverless flex $0.69–$1.10/hr, billed per second · OpenAI images — standard quality ~$0.03–$0.04/image. Prices move — the links are the truth; this section is just arithmetic.

The course · ★ = killer chapters

You build it, then you own it.

Nine lessons that take you from an empty project to a deployed, monetizable app on your own cloud. And it's taught AI-first: instead of telling you which file to edit, each lesson gives you the exact instructions to hand to an AI coding agent like Claude Code — the AI writes the code, you review and ship.

1.1
Design system
Tokens, type, mobile-first
1.2
Google login
OAuth, test users & publishing
1.3
Character creation
Option-based 4-step wizard
1.4
Image engine architecture
2-stage consistency, async jobs, GCS
1.5
Content generation
Scene presets + Gemini variety
2.1
Cost & margin optimization
Cold-start, slim images, model bake
2.2
Monetization
Credits + Stripe, one-flag on/off
3.1
Deploy to Cloud Run
Ship it live
3.2
Custom domain
Your domain + automatic HTTPS
Everything portable · no vendor lock-in
Your cloud. Your data. Your margin.
Next.js / App Router Postgres + Prisma RunPod / serverless GPU GCS / image storage Vertex AI / Gemini scenes Cloud Run / hosting Stripe / subscriptions
We hit these so you don't

26 traps, indexed by symptom.

Nothing here is theoretical — each one cost us hours on the way to a working deployment. The kit ships them as a symptom index: paste your error, get the cause and the fix.

Jobs stay stuck in the queue forever; worker logs show a 404 / missing revision crash.
Every scene comes back with a different face.
Character creation fails with “An external service error occurred”; logs mention signBlob.
Login breaks only on the deployed app; the error URL shows 0.0.0.0:8080.
+ 22 more — GPU cold starts, Cloud SQL bills, DNS, Stripe test-mode credits.
One-time · lifetime access

Own it once.

Weeks of infrastructure — the serverless GPU worker, async job queue, and character-consistency engine — already built, explained, and yours to deploy.

Not ready to buy? Run the free slice first → — the async job-queue layer, MIT-licensed, running locally in about two minutes.
OwnStack — full kit + courseFOUNDING · $50 OFF
$249 $299
Founding price for the first 50 builders — then $299
one-time payment · yours forever · lifetime kit updates
  • Full private GitHub repo — engine + app + docs
  • 9-lesson course, deploy end-to-end · in 45+ languages
  • 2-stage character-consistency engine
  • Monetization built in (credits + Stripe)
  • Runs on your GCP + RunPod — you own it all
Get instant access →
// 14-day refund before you open the repo · secure checkout · written course, no videos
Questions

Before you buy.

Do I need my own cloud accounts?+

Yes — that's the point. You deploy to your own GCP and RunPod, so you own the infrastructure and the margin. The course walks you through every setup step, aimed at builders who aren't infra experts.

Is this just another boilerplate?+

No. Free boilerplates hand you a UI. OwnStack ships the hard part: a self-hosted serverless GPU pipeline, an async job queue, and real character consistency — plus a course that teaches how it all fits together.

Do I need to be a strong coder?+

No. The codebase is structured for AI coding agents like Claude Code or Cursor, and the course is taught that way: point the agent at the repo, give it the instructions each lesson provides, and it makes the change — you review and deploy. You customize by describing what you want, not by hand-editing files.

What can the characters be?+

Realistic people, anime, animals, fantasy creatures, chibi mascots, robots. One base image locks the identity; every scene keeps the same face.

Can I charge my own users?+

Yes. Credits and Stripe subscriptions are built in and flip on with one flag. It's a deployable business, not a demo.

How do I get the code?+

Right after checkout, you connect your GitHub account and receive an invite to the private repo — engine, app, and the full course docs. You keep access, including future updates.

Is this a video course?+

No — the course is written, and it lives inside the repo, right next to the code. That's deliberate: written lessons stay in sync with the codebase as it updates (videos rot), you read at your own pace, and they double as instructions you can hand straight to your AI coding agent. Nine lessons, a full deploy runbook, and a symptom-indexed troubleshooting guide.

What language is the course in?+

English is canonical — and the entire written course also ships pre-translated into 45+ languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, German, French, Chinese, and more), right in the repo under docs/translations/. Translations are AI-generated from the English original and update together with the kit — no other kit does this.

What does it cost to run?+

The GPU bills per second only while generating — an image costs fractions of a cent, and idle is $0 thanks to scale-to-zero. The one always-on piece is the database, about $30/month on GCP (you can stop it while developing). New GCP accounts get $300 in free trial credits that cover it all at first. The course walks you through the exact numbers so you can price your own product profitably. Run your own numbers in the break-even calculator.

How do I get help if I'm stuck?+

The kit ships a troubleshooting guide indexed by symptom — every trap we hit while building this, catalogued with fixes. Beyond that, email support and we'll get you unstuck. And since the codebase is built for AI agents, pasting your error into Claude Code along with the lesson usually resolves it in minutes.

Are chat and video included?+

This kit is the character studio — generate and manage consistent AI characters, end to end. The characters are already chat-ready (personality and role are stored), so chat (persona conversations) and video ship later as separate courses with their own price. Your lifetime updates cover this kit; the new courses are optional add-ons, not part of this purchase.

Is the founding price going to last?+

No — $249 is the founding price for the first 50 builders; after that it moves to $299. Buy once at the founding price and every future update to the kit is included, free — forever.

What if it's not for me?+

You have 14 days to request a full refund, as long as you haven't accepted the private-repo invite yet — so you can decide before you ever open the code. See our Refund Policy.