Solo Web Dev

I’m a checklist kind of person, so to keep me motivated with my side project I hooked AI up to Linear and fed it my project plan (also created by AI). It created projects and tasks for me in the right order, and broke them up by day.

It’s super motivating to be able to check a few off each day!

The older I get, the more I realize that success is not about money or status. It’s about freedom.

My brain has two modes: “I can build anything” and “I forgot how to write a for loop.” There is no in-between.

The dreaded “Summarizing conversation history…” in Copilot AI ⏳

A work colleague and I re-purposed a work meeting that nobody else showed up to, to vent about some frustrating stuff going on lately. Meanwhile, Gemini was dutifully recording and summarizing everything we said… and sent to all participants at the end 🤦‍♂️

Luckily it wasn’t too bad, but be careful!

I asked AI to create a pitch deck for my project. Not because I plan on raising money, but because it'll help me focus on the core ideas. I think it did pretty well! runbooky.com/runbooky-dec.... See if something similar could help you!

For context, see my pinned post. #buildinpublic #runbook

I’m partial to Copilot but I totally get it. An in-IDE AI agent already feels like something I can’t imagine *not* using any more

If this sounds like something you've experienced as well, I'd love to hear from you!

#buildinpublic #DevOps #OnCall #SRE

If you're stuck on what to build, try this approach. Let AI do the heavy research -- but push it hard. Ask for sources. Validate technical feasibility. Check legal risks. Make it earn your confidence. Then build with conviction. I'll be posting updates as I go!

So now I'm building Runbooky (www.runbooky.com ): a unified discovery platform for runbooks. Find the right doc in seconds, no matter where it lives. It's the tool I wish I had during those 3 AM incidents.

Am I 100% certain this will work? No. This isn't a slam dunk. But I'm more confident than I've ever been starting something new. The research is solid, the problem is real, and I've personally felt the pain. That's as good as it gets before you start building.

Could I have done all this research myself? Sure. But it would've taken weeks, and I would've brought my own biases. I would've hit dead ends and convinced myself to ignore red flags. The AI did it in hours, objectively, and without attachment to any outcome.

The data was compelling: $9,000/minute average downtime cost, $3.3B TAM, and most importantly -- Reddit full of engineers asking "Does anyone have a tool for this?" The problem wasn't theoretical. It was validated by real people with real pain.

I also asked about pricing strategy. Should it be per-user? Per-integration? Usage-based? The AI analyzed competitor pricing, researched willingness-to-pay studies, and explained why usage-based pricing creates perverse incentives for this product.

Next question: "Why wouldn't a big company like Atlassian just build this?" The AI explained the Innovator's Dilemma: the market is too small for them to care ($5-10M is life-changing for me, a rounding error for them), and their platforms are too horizontal.

Then: "Would this violate any Terms of Service?" It analyzed GitHub's Developer Agreement, Notion's API Terms, Atlassian's policies. Found precedents like Glean and Raycast. Verdict: Low risk, as long as you use official APIs and respect data deletion.

But I didn't stop there. I asked: "Is this even technically feasible?" The AI researched GitHub, Notion, and Confluence APIs -- rate limits, webhooks, authentication. It came back with a full technical feasibility report. Answer: Yes, very feasible.

One idea kept surfacing: runbook discovery for on-call engineers. The AI found Reddit threads like "Senior SRE who knew all our incident procedures just left -- now we're screwed" and G2 reviews complaining about scattered documentation.

That was actually reassuring. It wasn't just telling me what I wanted to hear. It was giving it to me straight. And that's the benefit of this approach -- no ego, no confirmation bias, just cold, hard research.

Here's the thing: I had my own ideas too. I pitched a few to the AI, expecting it to validate them. Instead, it shot them down hard. Explained why the market was too crowded, why the problem wasn't painful enough, why I'd struggle to compete.

The AI came back with 7 initial ideas. But I didn't just pick one. I asked it to validate each with real evidence: Reddit threads, G2 reviews, market data. It provided actual links -- not vague claims. I could verify everything myself.

My initial prompt was simple: "I'm a Ruby developer who wants to build a B2B SaaS. Analyze potential opportunities, validate market need, and recommend ideas with real pain points." Then I pushed it to go deeper on each recommendation.

First, a caveat: ChatGPT won't cut it for this. You need an AI that can independently research the web, pull real sources, and come back with evidence -- not just confident-sounding hallucinations. I used Manus AI and gladly paid the $40/month for this.

After years of failed startup ideas, I tried something different. Instead of building on a hunch, I let AI run a full market analysis to find a validated problem worth solving. Here's what I learned and how you might do the same. #buildinpublic

Yeah, I have no problems with swings where some weeks are heavy and some light. That’s just part of the job.

My problem was them putting the blame on me without recognizing that they were the ones that caused it. I pushed back on the timeline so many times up front, but they were always indifferent

I really blame myself for thinking something would change.

Thank you for the kind words though!

This is more than just a vent. It’s a reminder to not give your employer more than they deserve. They won’t pay it back.

Be selfish with your time.

This left me with zero time for my indie hacking, which left me even more frustrated and drained.

Something inside me broke.

No more pouring my heart into my day job. All they’ll get from me now is an hours-for-dollars trade. No more “above and beyond”.

This is how innovation (for them) dies.

I don’t want praise or a shout out. I want leadership to make a change so that it never happens again.

Instead what I got was hinting that it was my problem for not setting boundaries.

How am I supposed to do that when the guy that signs my check is asking for these deadlines?

Last week I put in 70 hours of work (excluding working through the previous weekend) because it was literally the only way to meet an insane timeline.

I was hoping that it was a one-time slog that would cause things to get better. Instead, they just want more of the same with unrealistic deadlines.