Several years ago, after taking Websketching back over during a difficult period in my life, I wrote a post called “Trying to Find My MVP.”
At the time, I felt pulled in too many directions.
I had decades of experience in web development, SEO, local search, UX, content strategy, and digital marketing, but I wasn’t entirely sure where I fit into the future of the web anymore. The internet was changing rapidly. Social media had reshaped the industry. WordPress had become the standard. SEO was evolving constantly. And while I still loved solving problems online, I felt less connected to the work itself.
I kept asking myself:
What is my MVP?
What should I actually be building?
Looking back now, I realize I was asking the wrong question.
I Don’t Need One MVP
For years, building a new product or platform required enormous commitment.
You had to choose carefully because every project represented:
- months of development
- technical limitations
- financial risk
- opportunity cost
- and often a significant amount of stress
Most ideas never made it past the notebook stage.
Not because they were bad ideas, but because there simply wasn’t enough time or energy to fully explore all of them.
That reality shaped how many of us thought about building online. We were taught to narrow down, focus on one thing, and avoid spreading ourselves too thin.
But AI-assisted development is changing that equation dramatically.
Now, instead of spending six months wondering whether an idea is viable, I can prototype it.
I can interact with it.
Test workflows.
Explore UX.
Refine concepts.
See how it feels in the real world.
That changes everything.
The Ideas That Never Left
Like many people who have spent decades building on the web, I have notebooks full of ideas.
Some practical.
Some creative.
Some weird.
Some probably terrible.
Some that still quietly lingered in the back of my mind for twenty years.
And honestly, I used to feel frustrated by that.
I felt like I had too many interests:
- websites
- SEO
- dashboards
- QR systems
- workflow tools
- family memory systems
- local business tools
- content systems
- operational organization
- AI workflows
- UX improvements
- and dozens of other half-developed concepts
I thought the problem was lack of focus.
Now I’m beginning to think the real problem was friction.
The ideas were not the issue.
The cost of exploring them was.
Claude Code Broke Something Open in My Brain
Recently, I jokingly posted this on social media:
“I don’t want to sound like every other weirdo coder in the world but OMG Claude Code is blowing my mind. In about a week, I almost finished all of the ‘$1 million dollar ideas’ I have had over the past 25 years. I guess it’s time to find out if any of them actually are worth $1M …”
The funny thing is… I wasn’t entirely joking.
For the first time in my career, I no longer feel like I need to choose one idea and sacrifice all the others before I even know whether they are worth pursuing.
I can explore.
That may be the biggest shift AI has created for me personally.
Not automation.
Not content generation.
Not replacing developers.
Exploration.
I’m Starting to Realize What Excites Me Most
What excites me now is not simply building websites.
It’s building systems.
Workflow systems.
Knowledge systems.
Operational systems.
Visibility systems.
Memory systems.
Tools that solve real friction points for real people.
Some of these ideas may become products.
Some may become services.
Some may quietly fail.
Some may evolve into something completely unexpected.
And honestly, that’s okay.
Because for the first time in a very long time, building feels playful again.
It feels experimental again.
It feels creative again.
Maybe This Is the MVP
Ironically, after years of trying to “find my MVP,” I think I may have misunderstood the assignment completely.
Maybe the MVP was never supposed to be one perfect idea.
Maybe the real breakthrough was building a workflow that finally allows ideas to become tangible quickly enough to explore them before they disappear.
Maybe the MVP is momentum itself.
Or maybe I’m still figuring it out.
But either way, this feels like the beginning of something new.
And after spending most of my adult life building on the web, I can honestly say I have not been this excited about the future of development in a very long time.