My actual toolkit: how I ship without being a coder.

The question I get more than any other is some version of this: how do you build all these things if you're not a coder? People seem to expect a secret. There isn't one. It's a small set of tools and a lot of not giving up. So here's the actual list, nothing hidden.

One honest thing up front: the tools don't have the ideas. I do. They don't replace my judgment or the decades of business experience behind it. They just close the gap between an idea in my head and a real, working thing. Keep that in mind as you read, because it's the whole point.

The fast way to build: Lovable

Most of the apps on this site, the restaurant guide, the recipe tools, the little app-idea generator, were built with Lovable. I describe what I want in plain English and it writes the code. Its backend, Lovable Cloud, handles the unglamorous machinery, the database, the logins, the payments, without me having to stand up a server.

It isn't magic. I still have to know what I want, notice when something's wrong, and keep pushing until it's right. But it turns 'I have an idea' into 'there's a working site you can click' faster than anything else I've used.

The hands-on way to build: Claude Code

More and more, I build a different way: with Claude Code, which works much closer to the actual code. Instead of describing a finished app and getting it back, I work through it like a pair programmer. I explain the goal, it writes and edits the real files, I test it, and we go back and forth until it works. ListForge's marketing landing page, Project Borderless (my neutral news reader, the one linked here), and QuietPerch, an email command center, all came together this way.

And here's the honest reason I keep reaching for the harder path: I build these things to learn how they actually work. Each one teaches me something real, how a database fits together, how logins or payments or an email system function under the hood. Half the time the finished app is almost a side effect. The real point is that I understand a little more than I did before I started.

Separate from the building, there's the thinking itself, working through a problem, drafting and sharpening words, talking a half-formed idea into shape. I started that part of my AI journey with ChatGPT, mostly because it was one of the first LLMs the rest of us could actually get our hands on. Over time, though, I found Claude pulling ahead, it kept getting stronger and fit the way I work better, so most of that thinking now, this page included, happens with Claude.

Making it look, and sound, right

For images, I use real stock photos from Depositphotos when I want something that looks genuine, and AI image tools like ChatGPT or Nano Banana when I need something that doesn't exist yet, like the cartoon version of me on my About page.

That cartoon film is a good example of stacking tools: ChatGPT drew the character, Kling turned the stills into motion, and CapCut, which is free, stitched it together with music. No animation skills, just a chain of tools pointed at one idea.

There's one I haven't used yet: ElevenLabs, for AI voice. I have an account and it's next in line, probably as a way to show a business what a voice or narration demo could do for them. I mention it because this is my real toolkit, and being honest about what I haven't touched yet is part of that.

The plumbing

Underneath all of it is the boring, essential stuff: GitHub to keep the code safe and versioned, Stripe to take payments, Supabase for databases and logins (often through Lovable Cloud), and Vercel for hosting. None of it is exciting. All of it is what makes a thing real and keeps it running.

The part no tool gives you

Here's the honest bottom line. The tools are the easy half. The hard half is the idea, the judgment about what's actually worth building, and the stubbornness to wrangle these tools when they fight you, because they do.

None of this takes anything away from real developers. What they build goes deeper and sturdier than anything I can wire together with a prompt, and I respect the craft. It just means you don't need to be one to start.

That's the whole secret, if there even is one. You need the idea, and the willingness to keep going until the tool gives you what you pictured. Everything above is just what I reach for along the way.