Resources · Guide
start here.
How to build the thing in your head with AI when you're not technical. The method, the brief, the safety check and the fears, all in plain English.
taken from my book, BrAIve New World
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The barrier to building was never really talent. It was access, and that barrier is mostly gone. Things that used to need a developer, a budget and months of waiting can now be built by one person who can describe clearly what they want.
You do not need to be technical. You do not need permission. You do not need to feel ready. Start before you're ready. Everything else follows from it.
01 · the method
how to actually start
Whatever the tools are called when you read this. Tick them off as you go.
the tools will keep changing. the method won't.
02 · the brief
the brief is the skill
The quality of what AI produces is almost always a reflection of the quality of the brief it was given, not a limit of the technology. A vague brief gets a vague result, whether you hand it to a person or a machine.
Write it like you're briefing a new hire: one paragraph, specific, plain words. Knowing exactly what you hate about the current way is often more useful than knowing exactly what you want.
When you're ready to hand a whole job to an AI agent, the brief grows to five parts.
One job in one sentence. An agent given too big a job does all of it badly. If you can't fit it in one sentence, split it.
if you can brief a new hire well, you can brief an agent well.
03 · the human check
keep a person at the gate
AI states false things with total confidence. It sounds exactly as certain when it's wrong as when it's right, and gives you no signal to tell the difference. The human check isn't caution for its own sake. It's the design response to a tool that fails quietly.
five simple rules
- Before anything AI-made goes out under your name, a person checks it.
- Verify every fact, statistic, date or quote before you rely on it.
- If you haven't used your own judgement on it, it isn't finished. You've just forwarded it.
- Think before you paste anything confidential into any AI tool.
- Decide which parts of your work stay human on purpose, and write them down.
04 · the fear
name the fear
The reasons we give for not starting (no time, not technical, not ready) are usually covers for fear. A named fear loses most of its power. Tap the one that sounds like you.
Then do the smallest possible version today, badly, on purpose, before the fear can talk you out of it. Rough and real beats perfect and imaginary.
05 · once it exists
joy build or business build?
joy build
No obligation to make money. You built it because you wanted it to exist. That's allowed.
business build
Needs marketing and follow-through. Put as much energy into getting it seen as you put into making it.
building was never the hard part. being seen is.
free download
the workbook
Fourteen printable pages with room to actually do the exercises: the friction collector, the brief, the five-part agent brief, the human gate, name the fear and your first sixty minutes.
Download the workbook (PDF)No email needed. Print it, scribble on it, share it.
now go and build it.
Want the whole story behind it? Read about the book, or start with the AI cheat sheet if the words still feel new.