I can't believe I built an app in four days
(And what this means for the future of building)
Four days. That's all it took to go from "wouldn't it be funny if..." conversation with my husband to a fully functional AI palm reading app live on the internet.
And here's the kicker: I'm not a coder. At all. My entire programming background consists of some HTML from a school course and SQL from my Uber days. That's it.
When non-coders can build anything
My initial inspiration was babyboo.dev – the AI coloring generator tool my husband and I built. My role was primarily product marketer and website designer, but seeing my husband (who is also a non-coder) code inspired me to give this a go.
I've been enjoying what I call "vibe coding" way more than I should. You know that feeling when you're building something purely because it sounds fun, not because you need to justify it to stakeholders or write a business plan? That's exactly what happened here.
But talking to my brother (who is a computer science engineer) about it, I realized calling it "coding" feels almost wrong. To me, it's more like having a conversation with AI about what you want to exist, and then watching it materialize.
Thanks to a (VERY) long flight to India and some weekend hours, I made FateLines – a website that analyzes your palm to give you an AI-generated palm reading. Yes, really.
(Also side note/hot take on the astrology × AI crossover: it hasn't happened yet, and when it does, it's going to be massive. Why? You've got a multi-billion-dollar astrology market that's still largely analog, and you've got AI getting eerily good at personalization, storytelling, and (pseudo) prediction. It feels inevitable.)
How It Works
The concept is simple: upload a photo of your palm, get an AI-generated reading about your personality, relationships, and future. Is it scientifically accurate? Seriously questionable. Is it surprisingly engaging? Absolutely.
The whole thing took shape way faster than I expected, mostly because I wasn't actually writing code in the traditional sense. I was describing what I wanted, troubleshooting errors by copying and pasting them into Claude, and iterating based on AI suggestions. My "stack" was less about technical expertise, and more about using tools that can simplify the complex for me:
Claude & ChatGPT-4o-mini for the AI magic
VS Code for development
Render for deployment
most important - the husband for quality checks and troubleshooting
That's it.
The University Nostalgia Hit
Part of me wished I was back in university while building this. Ah, to be young and see the world as your playground again...
But here's what hit me: one thing's clear – building something is no longer the blocker. I went from idea to deployed application in four days, mostly solo, using tools that feel almost like having a team of expert developers at my fingertips. The technical barriers that used to take months to overcome no longer exist.
So if building isn't the constraint anymore, what is?
The Death of Traditional Excuses
The old barriers are crumbling:
"I don't know how to code" – Neither did I, apparently that doesn't matter anymore
"I don't have a computer science degree" – My marketing background was more useful (understanding user behavior, market dynamics, problem-solving frameworks)
"I need to learn frameworks and languages" – I still don't really know what React is lol
The New Bottlenecks
In my opinion, the real constraints now are:
Having interesting ideas worth building
Actually starting (the activation energy problem)
Knowing what to build that people want
Distribution and getting people to care
The Future Feels Different
The question isn't "can this be built?" anymore. It's "should this be built?" and "will anyone care?"
That's a MUCH more interesting problem to solve!
We're entering an era where curiosity and domain knowledge matter more than technical skills. Your weird, niche idea that you thought would take months to validate? You can probably test it in days.
and nothing’s stopping you :)
Until next time,
Shrikala