Finishing a stalled v0 app
A v0 app is the least stuck of the AI-built apps we see, because v0 is a user-interface generator and honest about it: the Next.js screens it writes are good, exportable and yours. What's missing is everything behind them. Solve With Software keeps the screens, designs the data model and the rules they imply, builds the back end, and finishes it one feature at a time, on a fixed price from the assessment.
Free · 1 hour · no obligation
What v0 gives you
Screens, and good ones. v0 writes Next.js with Tailwind and the shadcn/ui component library, which is the same stack a lot of professionally built web applications use. The code is meant to be taken out: copy it into a project, or export and deploy it wherever you like. Since February 2026 v0 has had Git integration, an editor, database connectivity and agent-style workflows, so a v0 project can go further than a set of components.
It rarely goes as far as a system. A typical stalled v0 app has a convincing dashboard, forms that look right, tables full of sample data, and nothing underneath that a business could run on.
What v0 doesn't give you
The part that takes the time in any business application:
- A data model. The screens imply one. Nobody has designed it.
- Business rules. Who can approve what, what happens when a quote is accepted, what a valid order is. The screens have buttons for these and no logic behind them.
- Real data. The tables show placeholder rows. Connecting them to a database is the moment the project usually stalls.
- Security. Login screens exist; authorisation, sessions and permissions usually don't.
- Integrations. The sync with Xero, the email, the payment.
- The boring layer. Error handling, validation, logging, tests, staging, backups.
None of that is a criticism of v0. It was built to produce interfaces, and it does.
Finish it or rebuild?
Keep the screens, build the system. The front end is usually worth keeping as it is, and it's the specification for the back end: every screen says what data it needs and what actions it offers. The work is designing the data model those screens imply, building the back end and the rules, connecting the screens to real data, and then finishing the features in order of value.
Because the stack is Next.js, the back end can live in the same project, which keeps things simple. The general keep, finish or replace reasoning applies, and the assessment makes the call from the code.
How we take a v0 app over
- Export to a repository in your organisation, and confirm it builds on a clean machine. It nearly always does.
- Read the screens as a specification. The assessment lists every screen, the data it shows, the actions it offers, and the rules those actions imply. That list is the design of the system.
- Design the data model from that list, and set up a database you own.
- Build the back end. Rules, authorisation, validation, the integrations the screens assume, with secrets in a store you control.
- Connect the screens to real data, one at a time, and finish the features in order of value, each priced before you commit.
- Foundations throughout. Test and staging environments, error handling, logging, a backup that's been restored.
Your data
Usually there isn't any yet; the tables are showing sample rows. Where real data exists, it never meets a change until the change has proven itself somewhere else: tested on a copy in a test environment, then run in staging with the data reconciled, before anything connects to live.
What it costs
The assessment is from £395 + VAT, sized on a free one-hour consultation, with an exact price before you commit. For a v0 app it turns the screens into a specification and prices the system behind them as fixed numbers. What drives the price and the payment terms each have a page.
How we approach it
The screens are the specification; the system is the work. Marc Allington builds with AI tooling daily, including v0, and builds on Next.js, so the stack is familiar. Everything we build runs on open technology in your own accounts, with full source code and ownership transferring to you on final payment.
What we check first in a v0 build
In order, on the first pass of the assessment:
- Does it build on a clean machine? Almost always yes.
- Which screens are connected to anything? Each table and form traced to real data, sample data, or nothing.
- What data model do the screens imply? Every entity, field and relationship the interface assumes.
- What rules do the actions imply? Every button that changes something, and what would have to be true for it to be allowed.
- Login, sessions and permissions. What exists, what's decorative.
- What the app assumes exists outside itself. Payments, email, storage, external systems.
- Where it would run, and what it would cost to run there.
The report turns that into a specification, a data model and a fixed price for building the system.
Questions
What people ask before they book.
Why did it stall? The screens are all there.
Because screens are the part v0 does. The moment the app needed real data, rules and permissions, it needed a system, and that's a different job from generating an interface. It's also the job we do.
Can we keep the design exactly as it is?
Mostly, yes. The screens usually survive with small changes where the real data doesn't fit the sample data. That's one of the reasons a v0 app is a good starting point.
Do we have to host on Vercel?
No. Next.js runs on Vercel well and on other hosts too. Where it runs is decided on cost, data location and what else you run, and it's your account either way.
Can our team keep using v0 for new screens?
Yes. With the code in your repository and a real back end behind it, v0 becomes a good way to draft new screens, which we then wire to the system and review.
How long to turn it into a working system?
It depends on how many entities and rules the screens imply, which the assessment counts. The shape is the usual one: a first process working on real data within about six weeks, then one at a time, each priced before you commit.
Start with a free consultation
An hour on your system, online or by phone. From there we size the assessment, from £395 + VAT, and give you an exact price before you commit.
Want the numbers first? See how pricing works.
Written by Marc Allington, founder. .