For the past three weeks, I’ve spent most of my spare time on Claude and Claude Code, building a padel app.
Last Saturday, I spent 80% of my waking hours on it. That’s how deep I am in this hole 🤣
(Even writing this newsletter, I keep switching apps on my Mac to prompt Claude about the next feature. 🤓)
The part you might not know about me
I have a master’s degree in software development, specializing in intelligent systems. AI, before it was cool enough to be called AI. I spent my university years playing with robots and machine learning models.
But I was never passionate about the coding itself. And honestly, I wasn’t very good at it either. My brain just doesn’t work that way.
What I was good at: understanding how things should flow. Features, sequencing, how every piece fits into the next one. When I started working, I quickly realized (and so did the people hiring me) that I wasn’t cut out to be a developer. So my career went elsewhere.
These days though, feel like my time to shine. 🤩
With tools like Claude Code, I can describe what I want to build: how I envision it, what it looks like, how it flows. And it writes the code for me. I get to focus on what I’m good at and what I actually enjoy, and delegate the part I never cared for anyway.
I have zero interest in learning five programming languages just to build something for web, iOS, and Android. Now I don’t have to. I let my imagination and creativity lead, and I outsource the execution... for $20 a month. 😵
This is a dream for me.
Finding something worth building
Once I had access to these tools, I started poking around for a project. Turns out that’s harder than it sounds. A lot of good apps already exist, so figuring out what to build wasn’t obvious.
Then I heard a podcast guest say something that clicked: pick an app you’re currently paying for and build your own version, or pick one you use (or wish existed) that’s missing a few things, and build that instead.
I play padel every week with friends. I’m a data nerd. I’m competitive. I wanted to track every match, see stats, all of it. A few apps out there do something like this, but none of them matched what I had in mind.
So I started building.
(Side note: if you play padel regularly, message me. I’ll invite you to try it before it launches.)
I’m not writing a single line of code myself, but I love how much this is challenging my brain. Thinking through good features, good UI decisions, what actually makes sense for the user. There’s something addictive about watching what’s in your head turn into something real, sitting on your phone, that you actually use every week. A few days ago I invited some friends to try it and give me feedback.
I love that this is possible now. For me, for all of us. It’s another tool in the toolbox. It’s lowering the barrier to entry to create.
The part that might lose some of you
I’m guessing some of you are already thinking “great, another AI fanboy. Fuck AI, it’s going to end us all.”
Fair. I get it. I’ve been using ChatGPT since it first launched in November 2022, and I haven’t stopped since (just switched over to Claude). I use it for work, for my personal life, for pretty much everything. I love it.
You’re allowed to feel differently, and I respect that.
But here’s how I actually see it: the market doesn’t care about anyone’s opinion. It doesn’t run a vote. If something brings enough value to enough people, it happens, whether you’re on board or not.
You get to pick your reaction. You can get grumpy about it, complain, and let it pass you by. Or you can put your feelings aside for a minute, actually use the tools, and understand what they’re capable of. Then at least you’re deciding from information instead of from fear. If you still don’t want it in your life after that, fair enough. Now it’s a real choice, not a reflex.
That’s where I land with AI. I think it’s going to keep evolving until it becomes a lot like the internet is today: we won’t really talk about “AI” anymore, we’ll talk about the tools, apps, and platforms built on top of it. The AI companies and models will become the pipes. What gets built on top is what actually shapes our daily lives.
Will we solve the current problems (data centers, energy use, all of that)? Maybe. Or maybe we’ll stop talking about it because the tools become too useful to give up, the same way people still complain about Facebook’s privacy practices and then open the app five minutes later anyway. 🤷♂️
So yeah, I love Claude Code. It’s letting me create things I couldn’t have built a few years ago, or at least not this easily.
Honestly, if someone paid me to just build products for people all day, I’d be one of the happiest guys around. I find this stuff genuinely stimulating and fun.
If there’s one thing I keep coming back to, in coaching and in my own life: stop forcing yourself to be good at everything. Figure out what you’re actually good at, delegate the rest (whether that’s to a person or to a tool), and put your energy where it counts.
Where do you stand?
I’m curious where you land on this, genuinely, not as a rhetorical setup.
Are you already deep in the AI rabbit hole with me? Curious but hesitant? Fundamentally against where this is all heading?
Hit reply or drop a comment. I’d love to know.
Also, keep an eye on your inbox this Sunday. There’s a special newsletter coming that’s a bit different from the usual. 👀
J