AI Taught Me Code I Built A SaaS

From Zero Coding to SaaS Founder My AI Powered Journey

Six months ago, I was struggling with basic web development concepts like trying to center a div, a task that often left me frustrated. As a waiter with absolutely no technical background, the world of programming felt incredibly distant. Fast forward to today, and I'm the founder of a working Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product with its first six paying customers. This is my story of how I used AI, specifically ChatGPT, to bootstrap my programming knowledge and build a business.

The Grind Endless Hours for Little Video Reward

My motivation stemmed from a personal pain point. I was dedicating over eight hours every weekend to creating 60-second videos for social media. The workflow was exhausting: two hours for scriptwriting, an hour to find suitable stock footage, countless takes (often 10+) to record a decent voiceover, and then at least four more hours editing everything together. The result for all this effort? Often, just a handful of views, like 12.

The Aha Moment What if I Could Automate It All

Instead of just accepting this broken and inefficient process, a thought struck me: what if I could automate the entire video creation pipeline? This idea became the seed for my project.

The Wall No Coding Skills and a Demanding Job

While I knew what I wanted to build, I had zero idea how to actually build it. Traditional coding bootcamps seemed out of reach, impossible to juggle alongside my demanding restaurant shifts.

My AI Tutor Learning to Code with ChatGPT

This is where my AI-assisted learning experiment began. I decided to treat ChatGPT as my personal, on-demand coding mentor. Instead of following rigid tutorials, I engaged with it conversationally, tailoring the learning to my immediate needs and curiosities:

• "Explain JavaScript promises like I'm 5, then show me how to use them."
• "How do React components work? Show me a simple example."
• "I want to call an API. Walk me through this step by step."
• "Here's my broken code and the error. Explain what went wrong and why."

A key insight from this process was that AI allowed me to learn by building directly, rather than getting bogged down in abstract concepts before I could see their application.

The Building Blocks My SaaS Tech Stack

Through this AI-guided learning, I assembled the following technical stack for my SaaS, VidMakerPro:

• Frontend: React (I learned its component-based architecture through ChatGPT explanations and examples).
• Backend: Node.js with Express.
• Database: Firebase (Its real-time features were crucial for delivering a good user experience).
• APIs: I integrated OpenAI for script generation and various media APIs to source assets.
• Payments: Stripe for handling subscriptions.
• Hosting: Render (Its seamless deployment process was a game-changer for me).

Navigating Development Hurdles with AI's Help

Building a SaaS product from scratch, especially as a solo founder learning on the fly, came with its share of challenges. ChatGPT was instrumental in helping me solve specific problems, including:

• Developing an asynchronous video rendering pipeline.
• Implementing rate limiting for API calls to avoid unexpected costs.
• Setting up user authentication using Firebase Auth.
• Providing real-time progress updates to users during video generation.
• Building robust error handling for failures from AI APIs.

Introducing VidMakerPro Effortless Video Creation

The product that emerged from this journey is VidMakerPro. It takes a simple text input (e.g., "benefits of morning exercise") and outputs a complete video. This includes an AI-generated script, relevant visuals, and a synthesized voiceover, all typically generated in about 3 minutes.

Early Wins Current Status and Metrics

I believe in transparency, so here's where VidMakerPro currently stands:

• Paying Customers: 6
• Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR): $65
• User Preference: 78% of users prefer the AI mode over manual editing options.
• Development Time: Built entirely during nights and weekends over approximately 5 months.
• Marketing Spend: $0 – all growth has been organic so far.

Thoughts from the Trenches Questions and Reflections

This journey has been incredible, and it has also sparked several questions and reflections I'm eager to discuss and learn more about from the wider tech community.

Firstly, I'm curious if others have used AI as a primary tool for learning programming. What were your experiences? What worked well, and what didn't?

Secondly, for those experienced with video processing pipelines, I'd love any suggestions for optimizing rendering speed. It's a key area I'm looking to improve.

And a practical challenge: how do you effectively handle API cost management when your service allows customers to generate potentially unlimited content?

Beyond these technical points, there's a larger, more meta question that this experience has raised for me: Are we entering an era where AI democratizes programming to such an extent that domain expertise in a particular field might become more valuable than deep, traditional coding expertise? The ability to translate an idea into a functional product using AI as a co-pilot could shift the landscape significantly.

I'm genuinely excited about the potential of AI-assisted learning and development and keen to hear others' thoughts on whether this approach can scale and what it means for the future of software creation. Thank you for reading about my experience!