Seven days ago, I decided to shift gears. I went from auditing smart contracts to building one of my own. I knew I didn’t have much time, but I had a clear goal: ship a working MVP.

Here’s what I learned in the process.

1. Clarity beats chaos From day one

I had a finish line in mind. Limited time forces clarity. It makes you ruthless about scope, and that's a good thing—until it isn't. A few times I over-engineered and paid the price: lost hours, unnecessary code, dead ends. Lesson learned: build the simplest version that works.

2. You don't need to "know frontend" to build

The entire frontend was written by AI agents. Literally. I wrote zero lines of UI by hand. That’s not a weakness—it’s leverage. We’re entering an era where knowing how to orchestrate code is just as powerful as writing it yourself. And honestly? I had fun with it.

3. Copilot Agents are insane

I finally understood what all the hype around tools like Cursor and Copilot Agents was about. It's not just code generation—it's context-aware iteration. It felt like pair programming with a tireless engineer who doesn't sleep.

4. Use every lever you've got

AI, StackOverflow, DMs, Discord servers, random GitHub issues... if it helps move the needle, it's fair game. One night I hit a roadblock with an authentication provider. I found a better SDK, raised a red flag about something that didn’t feel right, and ended up getting direct access to an improved API. Wild times.

5. Deadlines move — discipline stays

Some things took longer than expected. I had to pause, rethink, adjust. But I didn’t ghost the process—I kept showing up every day. That’s what actually matters. You don’t need to ship on day 7. You just need to keep moving.

6. I’m addicted to building now

There’s no going back. I’m already sitting on over a dozen new product ideas. Some good, some terrible, all worth exploring. That’s the thing about building in public—it generates momentum, clarity, and community.

7. Speaking of community…

The best part of this challenge wasn’t the product—it was the people. I received advice, encouragement, support, and real-time feedback just by talking about what I was doing online. That’s the cheat code: share your process, be loud, invite others in. In a remote-first world, visibility is everything.

What's next?

• Open-sourcing the repo and inviting contributors

• Shipping the smart contract to Starknet mainnet

• Fixing Stripe webhooks to make the app fully functional

• Reviewing code security and database rules

• Deploying backend + frontend

• And yes… going after the first 100 paid users

This isn’t just about one app. It’s about showing myself I can go from zero to one—and from idea to execution.

The journey just started. Let's build 🚀

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I’m sharing everything in public—from experiments to breakdowns to breakthroughs.