I build with AI and tell you exactly what happens.
Since I started building with AI, I’ve been continuously surprised, both by how good it can be and how far it has to go. The wins can be huge…but so can the bugs.
Over the past year, I’ve shipped Chrome extensions, run machine learning experiments on 39,000+ newsletter articles, started two SaaS (and closed one), and continued to learn Python and JavaScript, although I use Claude Code for most of the heavy lifting.
Some of it works, and some of it fails spectacularly. I document all of it honestly and with plenty of technical detail.
And I’m not alone on this journey. 92% of my subscribers are fellow Substack creators. If you’re here, you’re probably not just curious about AI…you’re building something too.
My story
I’m Karen Spinner, and I spent 15+ years as a B2B content strategist and copywriter for a boutique marketing agency, serving companies like Adobe, IBM, and Google.
When ChatGPT was released back in November 2022, I immediately saw its potential to upend my professional life. Even the early version could write in fairly clear, coherent sentences, even if they were a bit stilted and bland.
Since then, the technology has evolved rapidly…along with the wild promises and claims. Reading the latest tech news, I would find myself asking questions like, Can AI really do that? Knowing first-hand that a lot of technology marketing is more aspirational than grounded in real, tangible functions and features, I decided to see for myself.
Over the past couple of years, I have tested AI at work and at home to figure out exactly where it’s most useful and where it may be counterproductive or even present new risks. The results have been exciting (building stuff!), dismaying (the 13-hour itinerary from hell!), and just plain weird (AI agents collapsing into infinite loops).
Somewhere along the way, testing turned into building. I taught myself Python and JavaScript with AI assistance and shipped real, working tools. It turned out that I was “vibe coding,” even though I’d never actually heard the term.
Now I’m figuring out how to connect my SaaS with actual paying users and building a wide range of tools to solve real (and often real annoying) problems.
What you’ll find here
Honest reports from the building process, including the bugs and the failures
Tools I’ve made (some free, some for paid subscribers)
Workshops where builders demo projects, debug together, and learn new platforms
Everything I write is free. The paid tier is a toolkit for people who want to build alongside me.
Thanks for being here. Feel free to DM me if you have any questions!
