I saw the future with Claude Code.

In one day, a coding n00b took a rough idea to a working prototype.

All in a day’s work. Besides a few tweaks to my old Tumblr page, I’d never seriously worked with code. But, with the help of a tireless coding partner, it took me around 9 hours to move from a sketch of an idea, to a working prototype.

Earlier this week, I wrote about David Lynch, the infinite power, and infinite anxiety AI has brought to American Life. Admittedly, it focused a bit more on the anxiety side of the coin. But I’m not the only one feeling anxious. That same day, the market shed $300 Billion in value, after Anthropic announced its new suite of legal tools, and OpenAI announced its new model.

It finally dawned on the market how disruptive this technology could be. Private Equity funds, Big Tech, software companies, legal software firms freaked out.

So I decided to see what the fuss was about. I got a Claude Pro account, and went to work.

11:36am and Clueless

I had no idea what the heck next.js is, but I had an idea. With all the uncertainty in the job market, I wanted to create a responsive app that could help job seekers quickly adapt their resume for each job they’re applying to. Here’s where my background as a copywriter, UX researcher, and creative came in handy.

I had an idea and a rough sketch in my mind how it would look. For a product prototype I wanted the experience to be simple and streamlined: 1) Upload your resume, 2) Add Your Job Posting, 3) Let the tool adapt the resume for ATS scanners, and add relevant keywords, while retaining tone of voice. Keep it two pages, Helvetica, Simple formatting, no embellishments, no BS.

I typed my prompt into Claude, but didn’t even know where to start. I didn’t even know how to open the coding terminal on my laptop. But a quick YouTube search taught me to look for VS Code, a free coding software download. VS Code also has a Claude plugin that gives you direct access to Claude Code, right in your coding environment. Off to the races.

In one prompt, Claude worked with VS Code to start building the core infrastructure of my project. I had no idea what it was doing, but kept accepting its recommendations. Claude Code helped me set up my libraries and helped me find my Anthropic API code.

Hosted Locally

Even with my Pro Plan, I was out of credits by mid afternoon, and had to step away from the project for meetings and work. I reloaded some API credits (about $20 worth), and got back to work after dinner. While Claude Code worked away, it occasionally asked me to approve changes, which I just went with. I didn’t know if I was melting my laptop down, but trusted the tool and let it do its thing.

I hit so many obstacles, putting files in the wrong place. But Claude patiently worked with me to teach me where things should go, what button I should press, what prompts to copy and paste in my coding terminal to move to a prototype.

By around 7pm, I had a working prototype on my laptop. Here’s where I put my superpower to work. While Claude debugged and worked away, I came up with a quick name “Resolut” (Resumes, Resulution), and mocked up a quick wordmark. I asked Claude to brainstorm a few logo ideas but they were hot garbage. Finally found a weak spot.

Claude gave me specs for uploading SVGs files to the project. I exported the logos, told Claude Code where they were on my laptop, and it uploaded the logos to the prototype.

ERROR, ERROR, Debug, Debug

Even with Claude’s help, the prototype was buggy at first. At first it couldn’t read PDF resumes. I gave Claude the error, and it fixed it. Then it couldn’t read job descriptions. Claude fixed that. The UX was still a bit clunky, so we fixed the frontend. This is where my previous experience shined. It felt like I had a dev team that didn’t get tired, no sugar-free Red Bull required.

I tweaked the color scheme, added a dark mode. Added a “Start Over” button so I wouldn’t have to clear my cache after every trial run. But Claude worked through it.

I was wired, I couldn’t put it away. By 8pm, we had the bugs fixed on my local prototype. I had a named product, a logo, a working prototype. Minimum Lovable Product. I loved it.

By 8:30, I was satisfied with the product’s functionality and first-round UX. I wanted to export it to a place where folks could test it, break it, and give me feedback. So I asked Claude where I could host it, and found out about Vercel, a place to host test projects before moving them to your own server.

What’s Next

This was one of the most exhilarating experiments I’ve ever undertaken. It’s truly expanded my vision of what AI is capable of. Like my piece emphasized earlier this week, this is exceptionally powerful, and there’s no telling what these tools will do to our economy, and the current job market. In entrepreneurial hands, one person can cover a LOT of ground with these tools.

But, there are repercussions coming that we cannot yet see.

I DO think creatives (agency creatives in particular) are extremely well-suited to this new reality. With a coding partner like Claude, we have every other skill set to build products, take them to market, and find the audiences that need them. Approaching products from a concept and design sense, vs engineering first, might actually create more user-friendly products.

We know how to identify problems worth solving. We know how to communicate value. We know how to design experiences. The only thing we were missing was the ability to build. That gap just closed.

Drop me a note to test out my Product Beta. In the meantime, Stay Sharp.