About Pfanda Studios
Who's behind it, and the community that grew alongside it.
Who's behind it
I spent over twelve years in product management in the US before moving to Germany and going through the Digital Product School in Munich. That program was the reset button — it took me from writing specs and roadmaps to actually building things myself, using AI tools instead of waiting on an engineering team.
Pfanda Studios is what came out of that: a place to chase curiosity, ship things solo, and be honest about what worked and what didn't. Some of it's useful. Some of it's just an excuse to learn a new tech stack. Either way, it's the most hands-on I've been with product in over a decade.
AI Builders (evolving from Vibe Coding Community)
Pfanda Studios isn't just a solo habit — it's also where I lead a community I helped start after DPS, alongside my co-organizers Jurek Engels and Elisa Rosenberger, who were in the same DPS batch and have co-led it with me since the beginning.
What began as the "Vibe Coding Community" is evolving into AI Builders, a name that better reflects what we actually do: using AI to build, prototype, design, and experiment — coding is really just one part of it. If anything, I treat the community itself like a product — it should keep evolving and keep delivering real value to the people in it, not just stay static because that's what it was called on day one.
We're deliberately not an engineers-only group. The core has always been product managers, designers, and curious people who want to build things themselves, alongside a handful of developers who round things out. About 35 members, meeting every one to two months, mostly coordinated over WhatsApp — with a solid group of regulars who show up every time, always chasing something new to build.
Meetups run as full-day build sessions, Saturdays 9-to-5, at Munich Urban Colab. Everyone works on their own concept, side by side — solo-focused, but in the same room, so people can troubleshoot together, unblock each other, and just be around other people building. The day ends with a Final Product Show, where everyone demos what they made. Watching someone who's never touched code or AI tools before stand up and demo a working prototype — that energy is the actual reason I keep organizing this.
The community grew out of the Digital Product School (UnternehmerTUM), and a number of DPS mentors are still informally involved and supportive today.