Built An App in 4.5 Hours With No Coding Knowledge

Riley Brown tweets…

OMG!!!!! 6 Days Ago I had never written a line of code in my life.

But I just deployed my first note taking web app with a back end that stores the data, using Claude, Replit, and Google Firebase.

Just brute forced asked Claude AI questions alternating between 2 accounts to get around the limits, AND STILL running out of credits on both accounts.

Just about 4.5 hours later I had a custom Notes app in the style that I wanted.

I obviously don’t have any programming “hard skills”, but my understanding of what is possible with code has increased 1,000,000%

(Claude is a Google-backed ChatGPT alternative.)

Riley’s tweet went viral and he followed it up with a 14-min video tutorial showing how he built the app

He basically gives Claude a couple of screenshots and a drawing, then it’s just back and forth to explain how the app should function.

Riley admits in his initial video

Obviously, if I was releasing a tool, I would want to get a developer to come in.

But the fact that I could [do it] in 4 hours; a lot of people spend four hours just coming up with ideas and drawing it out on a whiteboard when you could spend four hours just making a full on mockup.

And I could send this to friends that I trust and they could go in… then come up with things that they would want to change so that by the time you go to a developer, you already know all of the features that you want to add.

And then they can basically refine the code at the end.

I like this approach: come up with an idea, then use ChatGPT or Claude as a brainstorming and technical partner to build a prototype.

You can then get real world feedback on the prototype, to determine if you’re onto something and should invest in building out a full product

If you have an idea for an app, how about giving this a try in the coming week?