84 Comments
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Rhonda Britten's avatar

God, I love you...

Jonas Braadbaart's avatar

It reads more like a Carousel odyssey!

Love the approach of having Claude generate CSS, hadn't thought of that at all!

I just brute force these things with nano banana, but that can run up quite the bill 😆

Karen Spinner's avatar

Yes, it was quite a journey! 😁 I also use NB for lots of things…agree it’s great but also quite expensive to dial things in!

Jonas Braadbaart's avatar

Definitely!

I had to add some additional steps in my workflow that let me refine the copy with Claude before I send out the prompt sequence to NB to rein in the costs 😆

Karen Spinner's avatar

Being picky with the NB prompts is a great idea! I need to work on that myself.

Ashwin Francis's avatar

I really appreciate your articles where you share build experiences, taking the reader all the way from ideation through tech stack & debugging to the final product. Lot of insights here, especially the callout for SEO optimization that is handled by node.js. I’d love to try out the tool.

Great post as always Karen!

Daria Cupareanu's avatar

I'd love an access code to try it out😍 (if possible)

Karen Spinner's avatar

Done! And thank you! 🤗

Refugio Arriozola's avatar

Nice Job

Dan Kershaw's avatar

Thanks for sharing Karen - appreciate the step by step.

If you still have room would love to BETA it too!

Karen Spinner's avatar

Absolutely! Will DM the access code!

Verushka's avatar

If it’s still possible, may. Please have an access code too?

Karen Spinner's avatar

Sure! I’ll send you a DM with the link and code.

HipsterTech's avatar

Even though I‘m sad you are moving away from the Python game 😀, I would love to give it a shot.

I‘m not a huge LinkedIn guy, but I plan to use it more for my mentoring - to add some more social credibility.

Karen Spinner's avatar

LinkedIn may actually be a good place for mentoring-adjacent content. 🤔 I’ll DM the link and access code!

valis's avatar

Hey,

I may be late to the game, but I'd love to test it out. I have a perfect use case at hand 👀

Karen Spinner's avatar

Sure, I’ll DM you the link and access code!

valis's avatar

Thanks so much, appreciated! I'll credit you 🙏🏻

Joel Salinas's avatar

I love how you take us through the process start to finish, learnings, hiccups and all. Thank you!

Karen Spinner's avatar

Thank you! 🤗

Mark Smith's avatar

☝️ would love to give it a try.

Karen Spinner's avatar

Great! I’ll send a DM with the access code.

DaddyO's avatar

I have been in healthcare for 30+ years as a Perfusionist. That is the profession of keeping people alive during open heart surgery. I recently was diagnosed with pilocytic astrocytoma. I had surgery in September and now I am currently disabled on long-term disability. I have no idea about coding or program generating experience. I have an idea for an app and I don’t know where to start. Is there any suggestions that you can give me to how to go about starting an app with my idea?

Karen Spinner's avatar

The first thing you should do is write down your idea in as much detail as you can. Explain exactly what users of your tool will experience and how they will benefit.

Once you’re done, share your doc with an LLM and explain any constraints you have (e.g., can’t spend more than X on development). Then ask it to write a detailed specification and recommend a technical approach. Remind it to ask you clarifying questions as it works.

Then you can give your spec to an AI coding assistant like Claude or Cursor to build. Or you could work with a no-code platform like Replit or Lovable—this can be a great option if you don’t have a tech background and want to build your prototype fast.

Hope this helps!

DaddyO's avatar

Thank you so much! I appreciate the information and your time.🙌🏼

Manisha's avatar

Karen I love this post so much and the level of detail is amazing! You are amazing at detailing out your build. I would love to test it out too!

Karen Spinner's avatar

Thank you! 🙏 Will DM the link and access code!

Iverson's avatar

This is great, Karen! Love reading about how a tool idea evolves into finished product.

Karen Spinner's avatar

Thank you! 🙏

Chuck Mazzanti's avatar

This is awesome!

Karen Spinner's avatar

Thank you! ❤️

Rado's avatar

I’ve been struggling with some press releases today and needed to publish them very fat in a carousel for LinkedIn. I would appreciate the opportunity to test your solution. It would save my weekends.

Thank you…

Karen Spinner's avatar

Will DM with the link and access code! Note that the current version supports text + logo only. Image support will be available towards the end of next week, if all goes well. 😅

Mark S. Carroll ✅'s avatar

Loved this. The real villain here is workflow friction, not Canva or even the tech stack.

The best part is the constraint discipline: you kept it “forgettably designed” so the content can win. That feels like the future of AI tools, where code is cheap and product judgment is the scarce skill.

Also appreciate the honest production lesson. Local working means nothing until it survives serverless reality.

Curious what you add next without breaking the 10 to 15 minute promise.

Karen Spinner's avatar

That is the challenge! More design choices = more complexity!