Rebuild the software you pay for
I just got a bill that made me say 'absolutely not.'
I was on a call this week and somebody asked what I'm building right now. So I told them. I'm building my own email platform just for me. Because I just got a bill from my current email platform that was kind of outrageous. And I was like, no, I'm going to just build my own.
So I'm having my AI agent do that. And it's incredible. It's like a duplicate of the one I was paying for.
Now somebody on the call said something that I need you to hear, because it completely reframed what this is about. They said take a software you pay for and try to recreate it. It's not going to be a positive ROI for your time. That's not the point. Do it to learn.
The ROI isn't in the app. It's in the skills you develop building it.
You'll develop so many skills doing that. And here's the other thing that hit me on this call.
I think it won't be like the death of SaaS, but it's going to break up SaaS into hyper niche apps or SaaS platforms, right? It's like these big monopolies are going to break up.
And just like someone on the call said, it could be an email platform specifically for ex-law enforcement. Or whatever niche you can think of. Things that never would have made sense to pay a developer to build before.
That's what's opening up right now. You don't need a whole team. You don't need six months and a runway. You need an idea, an agent, and the willingness to figure it out as you go.
So I want to ask you the same thing I asked on that call. Does anybody have a wild idea that they want to build that they thought would be too much of a lift to build and they just want to do it?
Not because it'll make you rich next quarter. But because the process of building it will teach you things you can't learn any other way.
You'll learn how the backend works. You'll see where the friction points are. You'll understand why certain features exist and others don't. And then you'll start seeing gaps everywhere. Not just in that software. In everything.
That's the real unlock. Once you build one thing, you start seeing what ELSE you could build. Or what you could build better. Or what weird niche version of that thing could exist that nobody's thought of yet.
Here's your homework, and I really mean this:
- Pick one piece of software you're paying for right now that you kind of understand how it works. Email platform, CRM, scheduling tool, whatever.
- Open up a conversation with your AI agent and just say 'help me rebuild this, step by step.' You don't have to finish it. Just start.
- Document what you learn. Not for content. Just for you. What surprised you? What was easier than you thought? What made you go 'oh THAT'S why they charge for this'?
- Think about one weird niche version of that thing that could exist. Don't build it yet. Just write it down.
The best time to do this was a year ago. The second best time is right now, today, before the rest of the world catches up.
Stay in the fight, Kevin
Pulled from a live call I was on and turned into this post with my AI setup. I spoke these words and my system cleaned them up. I use it to mine and produce content from my daily life and document the lessons I'm learning at a volume that wasn't possible in the past. If you see this footer, I used this system. If you don't, I wrote them word for word.