At a recent local Meetup, picking the next presenter felt like a missed opportunity.

There was a list of names based on signup order, and announcing who should go next felt more clumsy than it needed to be. Not a big deal. Just one of those tiny moments where you think:

“This could be a better experience.”

Normally that thought disappears with a cup of coffee. Most of us have these mental note files full of little ideas — things that could exist, but probably never will because the effort to build them feels bigger than the problem.

This time instead of making a mental note, I opened Claude and started describing what I wanted.

A few hours later, the idea was live as a small web app.

The interesting part was how fast the gap between my idea and a working product disappeared.

Less than a year ago, a project like this would have meant:

• designing the UI
• wiring up the logic
• deciding on a tech stack
• figuring out animation physics
• handling audio
• debugging everything
• 100 more things

That’s usually where side projects die — somewhere between “this would be neat” and “this is going to take way too long.” AI changes this. In this case Claude scaffolded pieces of the app, helped implement the interactions, and iterated on the UX while I guided the direction.

Twenty minutes later a working prototype existed. And it was fun. The app was fun and the process of building was fun again. The first version of the app took about 3 hours and is available online AnyOneWillDo.com.

The barrier between idea → working thing has dropped dramatically. The activation energy of starting something small has gotten much lower. Ideas that used to require weeks of nights and weekends can now be explored in an afternoon.

Addendum

The original online working thing took only a few hours. I have easily spent an additional 40 hours adding features and fine-tuning the UI since it went live. It is now am amazing representation of something that just lived in my head a couple of weeks ago.

Maybe there are projects that are only worth a few hours to make real. I believe some projects are closer to the heart and those can still take days, weeks, months. AI get’s us quickly to that first sharing moment. AI also accelerates the speed we can iterate and develop our vision. I am excited about developing again and the reach that AI gives me in exploring and learning new technologies.

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