Courses

Five steps to your first build

Building software with AI is genuinely easier than it looks — a working prototype is an evening's work now, not a quarter's. What is harder, and what nobody explains, is knowing what you have actually made once it runs. Start here, pick something small, and expect the fifth step to be the one that teaches you the most.

1. 1

   Pick something small and real

   Not a startup idea. One screen of an app you already use, or one thing that annoys you. “Rebuild the home screen of my bank app” is a good first project. “Build a social network” is not.

   Tip: If you cannot describe it in one sentence, it is too big for a first evening.

2. 2

   Pick one tool and stay in it

   A chat-based coding assistant, an in-editor assistant, or a prompt-to-app builder. They all work. Switching between three of them while learning is how evenings get lost.

   Tip: Most people start with whichever they already have access to. That is a perfectly good reason.

3. 3

   Describe the outcome, not the code

   Say what the user should see and be able to do, and what must not happen. Let the tool choose the implementation. Then read what it produced — that is where the learning is.

   Tip: Fix the data shape before you ask for any UI. It is the single change that most reduces flailing.

4. 4

   Get it in front of somebody

   A deployed link, however rough, teaches you more than another hour of polish. Watching one person use it will show you three things you could not have guessed.

   Tip: Fake anything that is hard — logins, payments, real data — and write down that you faked it.

5. 5

   Write down what comes next

   What is faked, what would fall over, what you would never let real users near. Do this while it is fresh, because in a week you will have forgotten and started believing your own demo.

   Tip: This is the part we ask for when you post. It is also the part that earns respect from people who run real systems.