I don’t know how to code. I want to get that out of the way right now.
I’ve made three attempts at building a note-taking app for language learners.
Nothing flashy, just a genuinely useful tool with some AI running quietly in the background. All three went sideways in ways that were both humbling and, in retrospect, funny.
Vibe coding sounds great until you realize that copying prompts into an editor and hoping for the best is not the same as understanding what you’re actually building. I learned that the hard way, three times over.
I’m going to write a proper post about that app and the whole journey behind it eventually. But that’s not what this is.
Why I’m Going Smaller on Purpose
After striking out three times on something ambitious, I made a decision: stop trying to build things that matter and start building stupid things.
Not stupid as in poorly thought out. Stupid as in low-stakes, fast, and a little ridiculous. The kind of app ideas you pitch to a friend as a joke and then immediately think, wait, that might actually work.
The goal isn’t to ship something meaningful. The goal is to figure out what I’m doing.
To get my hands dirty with simpler builds so I can start understanding the fundamentals instead of just banging my head against complexity I’m not ready for.
And honestly?
The idea of documenting all of it: the failures, the costs, the half-finished ideas, the moments where I realized I had no idea what I was doing, feels more interesting to me than only writing about things that worked out.
The Studio Idea I Can’t Fully Announce Yet
When I started thinking about this experiment, it grew into something bigger pretty quickly.
I found myself inspired by a VC firm called fail.vc.
Their whole model is investing in ridiculous ideas through a venture studio, and their current stats are 72 failures and 6 successes.
What got me wasn’t the failure rate. It was the fact that they published it. No spin, no silver lining framing, just: here’s what we tried, here’s what didn’t work. That kind of transparency feels almost radical when the default is to only talk about wins.
I want to build something like that, but as a one-person operation for now.
A studio that experiments constantly, runs weird ideas up the flagpole, documents everything, and isn’t embarrassed by the body count of failed projects.
I’m not ready to name it yet. But it exists. And every project I build will eventually live under it.
I Asked Claude for Stupid App Ideas
I did what any self-aware idiot non-programmer does when they need a list: I outsourced the thinking.
I asked Claude AI to give me a list of ridiculous but simple app ideas. Things a complete beginner could actually attempt without needing to understand architecture or write anything complex.
Here’s what we got from our bestie Claude AI:
- Excuse Generator — generates a convincing excuse for any situation, formatted by urgency level
- Compliment Timer — sends you a random compliment every X minutes so you feel better about your day
- Overthinking Detector — you type out your problem, it tells you if you’re overthinking it (spoiler: you are)
- Meeting Could’ve Been an Email Rater — paste a meeting summary, get a score on how unnecessary it was
- Fake Productivity Dashboard — looks like you’re busy, does nothing useful, makes you feel accomplished
- Decision Flipper — you type a decision you’ve already made, it validates it so you stop second-guessing
- Nap Justifier — generates a scientific-sounding reason why your afternoon nap was productive
- Tab Shame Counter — tracks how many browser tabs you have open and judges you accordingly
- Startup Name Generator for Bad Ideas — gives your dumb idea a serious-sounding name so it feels legitimate
- Regret Rater — you describe something you did, it rates your regret on a scale of 1 to 10 with commentary
Are any of these good ideas?
Probably not. Are any of them something I could realistically attempt to build without completely losing my mind? Maybe. That’s enough for now.
What This Is About?
I’m stuck. I’ll be honest about that. My routine right now is mostly recording bedtime stories for Story Brew, which I love, but it’s consuming.
I needed something else to think about. Something that felt more like play than work, where failure doesn’t cost me anything except a little time and pride.
This experiment is that thing.
It’s not a pivot. It’s not a new direction. It’s just me deciding to be bad at something in public for a while and seeing what I learn from it. If one of these stupid ideas accidentally turns into something real, great.
