Ludooka
AI Children's Book Platform — Write, Illustrate, Narrate, Print
Took over a broken codebase and shipped a working platform in four months. A 13-phase book generation pipeline, ElevenLabs voice cloning, Stripe billing with credits, and Lulu print-on-demand — rebuilt from authentication upwards.
Industry
Education & AI-Generated Children's Books
Client
Sajad — ludooka.com
Engagement
Codebase Takeover & Full Platform Rebuild
Timeline
Month 4, ongoing — in final QA before launch
Outcome
Working platform in 4 months — billing, auth, generation pipeline, and print all functional
Tech Stack
React, Vite, TypeScript, Tailwind, Supabase (DB, Auth, Storage, Edge Functions), Stripe, Lulu API, Gemini 2.5, ElevenLabs TTS
The Business Problem
Ludooka is an AI children's book platform. The vision: authors write, AI illustrates, voice cloning narrates, and the book ships to print or digital.
When Tech Emulsion took over, the codebase was broken in almost every layer. The product had a vision. The implementation was a hand-off problem.
Nothing worked — and a paying market was waiting.
01.
Book generation engine didn't work
02.
Authentication didn't work — random logouts
03.
No Stripe billing or credit consumption tracking
04.
App was unresponsive and rejected by users
05.
Lulu API for print-on-demand was not integrated
06.
Codebase had no best practices — single files with giant functions
What We Built
A working platform shipped piece by piece over four months. Every layer rebuilt — from authentication through to print fulfillment.
01.
Proper authentication with real session management — no more random logouts
02.
Stripe billing with credits, plans, and upgrade-only flow
03.
Rebuilt frontend — responsive, consistent, and ready for real users
04.
Admin panel tracking platform activity in real time
05.
13-phase book generation pipeline — world, characters, assets, pages, QA, finalize
06.
Lulu API integration for print-on-demand copies
07.
ElevenLabs voice cloning — author records once, AI narrates the whole book
Key Technical Decision: Upgrade-Only Plan Changes
Cursor, Lovable, and similar platforms don't show users a downgrade button. They only show upgrades. Downgrade math is complex — credit prorations, refunds, plan-specific feature access loss — and creates support nightmares.
We made the same call. Users can upgrade in one click. Downgrade requires support intervention.
Less surface area for billing bugs, fewer edge cases that break revenue.
The Result
The book generation engine, billing, auth, and print integration all work. The platform is in final QA before launch.
What We'd Do Differently
Don't rush under client pressure. Skipping tests on AI generation pipelines is how you ship something that works on one book and crashes on the next. Strong tests are how you gain confidence — and that confidence is what lets you respond calmly to pressure instead of cutting corners.