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The IdeaPlaces catalogueAutumn 2026 · Twelve entriesEst. 2014, reborn 2025Ideaplaces Inc.

Software built from problems, not pitches.

Open the catalogueTell us about a problemEvery figure below is the product as it looks today

Contact sheet · 12 framesCaptured 10 September 2026

§ 1 The catalogue

Four to start with.

The ones carrying the most weight: a paying business, Luca's own app, and two tools other developers run every day.

No. 01

TourCockpit

Booking and dispatch for day tour companies. Resellers book their own seats, and the office runs the day on one board.

Status
Live
For
Day tour companies and their resellers
Price
From €300 a month
Address
tourcockpit.com
  1. Built with a working tour company, from their real workbook
  2. Six languages across the whole app
  3. Its product film is generated from code, not recorded
Open TourCockpit
The TourCockpit homepage
Fig. 01tourcockpit.com, as it looked on 10 September 2026.

No. 02

Gymswell

A workout and nutrition tracker with an AI coach, built by Luca for people who lift and want to see progress.

Status
Live · iPhone beta
For
People who lift
Price
Free on the web
Address
gymswell.com
  1. 160 exercise videos, filmed in a real gym
  2. 13,000 foods, searchable with no connection
  3. The iPhone app is in TestFlight
Open Gymswell
The Gymswell homepage
Fig. 02gymswell.com, as it looked on 10 September 2026.

No. 03

C3

Claude Code sessions on your own machine, started from Slack, Discord or a schedule, and followed from any browser.

Status
Live · Open source
For
Developers who run coding agents
Licence
Apache 2.0
Address
c3.ideaplaces.com
  1. Runs where your code and credentials already live
  2. Resume any session from your phone
  3. The source is on GitHub
Open C3
The C3 homepage
Fig. 03c3.ideaplaces.com, as it looked on 10 September 2026.

No. 04

Style Guide

Describe a brand, refine it in a conversation, and export a whole design system.

Status
Live
For
Founders and developers without a designer
Price
Free to start, from $5 a month
Address
styleguide.ideaplaces.com
  1. Colours, type, spacing, components and screen previews
  2. Exports for web, iOS and Android, in 8 formats
  3. TourCockpit's own palette came out of it
Open Style Guide
The Style Guide homepage
Fig. 04styleguide.ideaplaces.com, as it looked on 10 September 2026.

§ 2 Also in the catalogue

Smaller tools, same rules.

Some started as a hackathon weekend, some as an itch one of us could not stop scratching. All of them are real, and you can open every one.

§ 3 House rules

Ship fast. Learn faster.

Four rules every product in the catalogue was built under.

  1. I.

    Real problems first.

    Every product starts as friction we watched happen, in a company we worked inside or in our own day. Not in a brainstorm.

  2. II.

    Show the value first.

    No mandatory sign-up, no onboarding tour. You see the result before we ask for an account, and the account before we ask for money.

  3. III.

    Production from day one.

    Deploys, tests, monitoring and secrets in a vault from the first commit. A prototype that works is a product that works.

  4. IV.

    Revenue is proof.

    People paying for a tool is how we know it is worth keeping. Until then it is an experiment, and we say so.

§ 4 Who we are

One company, two people.

A father and his son, building every product in this catalogue together.

Chip Rarau

Founder

A serial entrepreneur. He co-founded WISK.ai and built it to more than 1,000 restaurant clients as its CTO, and before that was the first employee at OMsignal, later acquired by Honeywell. Now he runs IdeaPlaces and writes about building with AI agents.

ciprianrarau.com

Luca Rarau

Developer

I'm Luca, 19, a computer science student and a developer at IdeaPlaces, the product company I build with my dad. Gymswell is mine, and I build TourCockpit with my dad.

I build tools that keep up with people.
lucararau.com

§ 5 Dispatches

Notes from the bench.

What building these taught us, written up the week it happened. Every post

1 September 2026

White Label in One Conversation

Our first customer wanted the product to wear their name: their own subdomain, their brand on the login page.

31 August 2026

The Help Center That Films Itself

Every help page in TourCockpit is written from the spec, rendered with the real product components, and topped with a narrated film in the reader's language.

31 August 2026

Style Is Data: I Rebranded an Entire Product in One Shot

App, marketing site, dark mode, PDFs, icons, and 38 product videos, all moved to a new brand in one push.

Got a problem that keeps coming back?

Tell us where it shows up and who it costs. If it is worth a product, it goes in the next edition.

contact@ideaplaces.com