What I Learned Building a Product Entirely with AI

VIVID is an AI audio product I'm building. But this isn't a product announcement. This is a confession.

I built VIVID almost entirely with AI. The concept. The code. The design decisions. Even the name. AI was involved in every major step.

Here's what I learned.

AI Doesn't Replace Judgment

My first lesson came immediately. I asked AI to help me conceptualize the product, and it gave me twenty ideas. Nineteen were terrible.

But one was interesting. And that one became VIVID.

AI is excellent at generating options. But choosing between them — knowing which option has potential — that's still entirely human. The AI gave me quantity. I had to provide quality.

Taste Is the Bottleneck

This theme repeated throughout the project. AI could write code. But it wrote code I would have been embarrassed to ship. AI could design interfaces. But they looked generic and lifeless.

The work became a constant dialogue: AI generates, I evaluate, AI refines, I evaluate again. The better my taste, the faster this loop moved.

I started to see taste as a skill, not a personality trait. Something I could develop by being ruthless about what I accepted.

Speed Is Dangerous

Building with AI is fast. Dangerously fast. I could prototype in a day what would have taken a week. I could explore ideas that would have been too expensive to try before.

But speed created its own problems. I built features nobody needed. I went deep on technical solutions before validating the problem. I optimized too early.

The lesson: AI makes building fast, but strategy still takes time. Sometimes the best use of AI is to slow down and think more carefully about what to build.

The Confidence Gap

Here's something nobody talks about: building with AI feels like cheating.

When I shipped code that AI wrote, part of me wondered if I really built it. When I showed VIVID to people, I felt like a fraud. Someone would find out that I didn't write every line myself.

Then I realized: nobody cares. Users don't ask how a product was built. They ask if it works.

The "I built it myself" badge of honor is an ego trap. What matters is the outcome, not the process.

What I'd Tell Past Me

If I could go back to the beginning of VIVID, I'd tell myself:

• Start with AI from day one. Don't build "the hard way" first.
• Be ruthless about quality. AI makes it easy to ship mediocrity.
• Trust your judgment. AI is a tool, not an oracle.
• Don't hide it. Building with AI isn't cheating. It's the new normal.

Why This Matters for Leaders

I'm not special. I don't have a technical background. I taught myself to code. And yet I built a product with AI.

That means you could too. Not the same product, but something. An internal tool. A prototype. A proof of concept.

The barrier between "person with ideas" and "person who ships" has never been lower. The only question is whether you'll use AI to cross it.

Curious about building with AI? Start the conversation and explore what's possible.