Big milestone for me yesterday. Went from idea to App Store (well, App Store Connect, TestFlight build) completely solo with an iOS game, and have three other apps coming soon.
More on that later, but for now, check out the little site for Bacon Cheese Frosting, my company of one. Will put links to the new apps there as they are launched. And yes – they are launching!
I’ve always been beholden to other people to get an idea into clickable, launchable and ultimately sellable form. AI takes a lot of thumbs out of the teeny-tiny pie I’m working with.
When I hear about the uproar, the booing, the horror of AI “taking our jobs”, my question becomes, “and exactly what job is that?” Are you the “engineer” who used to bill me for a month’s work to create a feature I just knocked out in an afternoon? Are you the “Interactive Architect” who cost me a week and made me bill my client for a set of wireframes like those I knocked out in ten minutes using Freeform and a Pencil on my iPad before feeding them into Claude? It seems the haters are lamenting the fact that the heretofore unchallenged business of being the “Troll under the bridge” is coming to an end. Rather than sweat how to pay in time and money for work that only a troll is uniquely positioned to do, AI just simultaneously democratized and demolished the business of trolling.
If this enrages you, you’re probably one of those trolls. Enjoyed a lucrative career of being that one guy who can bring the party train to a halt while you cobbled in mystery on things Only Beknownst to You, declaring arbitrary timeframes (if at all – I can’t count how many engineers I’ve employed who refused to give actual timeframes).
Now that I’ve got some folks beet red and calling for my head on a pike, good. Let’s channel that passion into something positive.
I’ve literally just picked up on a few things myself in the off hours (when AI engines are cheapest, BTW) and set goals to build some things all by myself. First off, do I have any decent ideas? Second, are any of them feasible for “vibe coding”? Third – challenge accepted – let’s see how far I get. Looks like all the way to the App Store. I’m by trade a Producer/PM. That means I’ve been writing up detailed “prompts” my whole career – just called them scripts and PRDs then. Feedback loops were notes and milestone planning. My experience managing and directing designers, coders, marketing and sales folks has been invaluable to write prompts – and AI is literally only as good as the prompt handed to it.
So to the angry ones – to the recently laid off or the frustrated job seekers – what’s stopping you from building and deploying a real product? One that YOU came up with, rather than working on someone else’s stuff?
