Seven years of starts, stops, and finally building

My journey into building software began not out of a desire to become a programmer, but from a simple need to find a better way. Early in my career as an analyst, I was faced with a list of a thousand patents and the monotonous task of reviewing each one manually. It was the kind of repetitive work I’ve always disliked, and I noticed patterns—certain keywords and factors that consistently pointed to irrelevant entries. I was convinced there had to be a more efficient approach than spending a full day on it.

That conviction led me to write my first simple application using VBA. It took about five hours to figure out, but the result was staggering. The script could sift through the entire list in minutes, flagging the 90% of irrelevant patents and leaving me with a manageable set to review manually. A task that once consumed my entire day was now finished in less than half an hour. For the first month, I kept the tool to myself, enjoying the quiet satisfaction of having solved my own problem. That initial success sparked something in me—a realization that I could actively shape my work instead of just passively completing it.

What surprised me was that even with the free time I'd gained, I found myself diving deeper into VBA, exploring what else I could automate. This became a recurring theme for me. I was constantly looking for ways to eliminate repetitive tasks, and writing code became my primary tool. My early programs were simple, but they were my own, and it was rewarding to build solutions that made a tangible difference in my daily work.

Eventually, I wanted to build something more substantial, beyond the confines of the Microsoft Suite. My interest in analytics led me to Python, as I needed a way to process datasets far too large for Excel. This opened up a new world. I started learning how to scrape websites and manipulate data in more powerful ways, which soon led to a new project idea rooted in a personal routine. Every month, I would spend about an hour manually logging into all my different bank and investment accounts to calculate my net worth. I wondered if I could automate this entirely.

That idea became a project I was truly excited about, not for any commercial reason, but simply because it would be incredibly cool to have a personal tool that did this for me at the press of a button. I poured my weekends and evenings into it for over a month, navigating documentation, Stack Overflow, and YouTube tutorials. When it finally ran perfectly, fetching the data I needed from across the web, it was an incredible moment of accomplishment, validating all the hours I'd spent.

My next goal was to build a proper web application for my financial dashboard, moving it from a simple script into a visual platform. That’s when I hit a wall with JavaScript. For where I was at the time, its complexity felt insurmountable. I tried to brute-force my way through, but I was out of my depth. It was a discouraging experience, and for a while, I gave up.

For the next five or six years, it became a cycle of starting and stopping. I’d work on smaller projects like calculators to build my skills, but the larger vision of the web app remained just out of reach. I always knew what I wanted to build but lacked the technical depth to bring it to life. All I ever really wanted was to create things for myself, tailored to my specific needs. I’ve always believed there’s a special connection you have with something you’ve built rather than bought. Life eventually took me in another direction, and I pursued a master's in business, a path that felt more within my control.

Right after I graduated, ChatGPT was launched. Initially, I saw it as a helpful brainstorming tool, but everything changed when it began writing code. It was the missing piece—the bridge between my vision and the technical limitations that had frustrated me for years.

Even today, I believe that creating commercial, robust products for a broad audience still requires people with strong technical backgrounds who understand risks and can spot mistakes. However, software has now advanced to a point where individuals like me can build one-person applications. With my product management experience, I know what I want to build and what quality looks like. Now, with AI’s help, I can bring those ideas to life. To me, that is true power.

I believe this is where much of the shift will happen. Many people like me have ideas and the determination to dive into documentation and figure things out but haven’t been able to build what they envision. Now, they can create something tailored to their needs. Not everything fits a one-size-fits-all model; what works for me might not work for you. I’d rather spend time building something that works for me and share that knowledge so others can build what works for them. That’s the future.

Of course, many apps will still be available. As Sam Altman recently said, we’re entering the "fast fashion" era of SaaS. But I also feel we’re moving into a tailor-made era, where people can create their own apps because they know what they want, and software can help them figure out how to achieve it. That’s going to be very powerful.

I’ve already started working on a backlog of ideas I couldn’t explore before, and now I can. Some might think that since AI writes the code, you’re not really learning, but I believe the opposite is true. You still develop an understanding of how software works—the relationship between frontend, backend, databases, APIs, and more. This knowledge helps you grasp complexity and build better products.

I believe the knowledge I gained through trial and error over seven years could now be learned in about seven weeks. You could reach the same level of understanding and then start building software—especially software you will use yourself. The only limiting factor now is how broadly and creatively you can think.

While companies will continue creating solutions for people uninterested in building their own tools, many of us enjoy building. As humans, we take pride in creating things for ourselves. I foresee not only individuals building software but also many companies developing their own internal tools. Even simple tools like CRMs or software for managing customer complaints, internal tickets, or documents will be customized to fit unique business processes.

So, I think everyone should build something. If you’re not building, it’s not the end of the world—but once you dive into the details and create something of your own, it becomes addictive. I didn’t stop after writing my first piece of code, and I don’t think you’ll stop after building your first software either.

It’s addictive, and that’s what makes this such an exciting time.