Coder of 20+ years teaching non-technical people how to build their own software business in 30 days with AI. No devs or code required.
Why You Still Haven't Built Your App
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Everyone overcomplicates building with AI. Especially engineers. They come from a background where planning is everything. Think it out 10 times over or problems down the road, right? I get it, and this used to be my reality. But it's not anymore, and it's not what I teach today. Here's the ThingHow engineers use AI and how non-tech people use AI to build things is fundamentally different. Non-tech people listening to traditional engineers lead to terrible results. People who just want to build their ideas end up spending time thinking about context-rot, engineering context with repo prompts, writing full specs for apps that... ...will never see the light of day 🥲 This is bullshit if you ask me. The Real PatternI've watched this play out over and over: Engineers: Weeks planning the perfect architecture Average builders: Just start with basic prompts Guess who actually builds apps faster? My TakeBUILD NOW PLAN LATER. Your app doesn't need the perfect plan or 17 features. It needs to solve ONE person's BIG problem well enough that they'll use it. There is beauty in just building and figuring things out. What You Should Actually DoIgnore anyone telling you a plan is the most important thing. Your only goal right now is to VALIDATE YOUR IDEA. The smallest viable version of it, not the big grand thing. Stop watching YouTube videos, stop buying courses, and start building. Everything else is just expensive procrastination. Best Tools Right NowI currently recommend Cursor (or Windsurf if you're on a budget). But even a tool like v0 by Vercel (a better Lovable) is a solid start. If you are on ChatGPT Plus, Codex CLI is also an amazing way to start. Talk soon, P.S. I share my unfiltered thoughts on AI coding daily on X/Twitter - follow me there for the fastest coverage on everything, as well as my spiciest hot takes on all things AI. |
Robin Ebers
Coder of 20+ years teaching non-technical people how to build their own software business in 30 days with AI. No devs or code required.
Hey Reader, Nobody wants to say this out loud, so I will. The "free AI tools are good enough" era is ending. And if you've been waiting for the perfect cheap tool before you start building your idea... the window is closing faster than you think. What I Found Last Week I tested Kimi K2.5, one of the most hyped "free" AI models right now. Won't lie to you, it's actually decent. The closest to Claude of all Chinese models. But here's the thing nobody is talking about: The gap between free AI...
Hey Reader, Just made it to Thailand, and while drinking my first coconut... 🥥 I saw someone on X asking how to set up AI coding tools for non-technical people. Funny enough, I currently teach my wife how to build her first app without writing any code. And this simple trick helped her do it. One simple paragraph. That's it. My wife Diana testing her iOS app on her iPhone 17 Pro Max The Simple Trick I keep telling my Blueprint students ALL the time to use this. It just works so well that I...
Hey Reader, It's been two months since I updated the list, so let's quickly take a look at what's new. A little context: it has been significantly simplified. I really only use GPT-5.3 Codex High and Extra High (Fast if in Cursor) for almost everything. It requires you to be a little more aware of your prompting and your goals, and to ask the right questions. But it is the smartest AI model, and it is not even close. There's a huge shift in the industry right now, with people switching away...