I just built a complete campaign website in 15 minutes.

Started with an idea about procrastination and 5-minute commitments. Did deep research with Claude on the psychology and statistics. Then researched what people actually say about procrastination on forums and Reddit.

Opened Claude Code, gave it browser access, pointed it to Pexels for background images. Asked for a compelling site with scroll-snap and the best arguments from my research.

15 minutes later: a polished campaign site that would normally take weeks.

Total cost: $5 Cloudflare hosting, $15 domain, $90 Claude subscription.

Here’s what this means for the industry:

The gap isn’t between AI and humans. It’s between people who can write prompts and people who can launch websites.

Knowing how to use ChatGPT is common. Knowing how to take AI output and make it live on the internet is rare.

Small agencies are caught in the middle. They can’t compete with big shops on reputation or with AI-assisted individuals on speed and price.

The winners will be the few people who combine AI skills with web development knowledge. They’ll serve businesses that want custom work without enterprise timelines or budgets.

Most traditional small agencies won’t make this transition. Not because AI will replace them, but because very few people can bridge the gap between AI conversations and working websites.

I hear chatter about AI eating companies competitive moats. SaaS companies are panicking as AI-powered competitors replicate years of work in months.

But I think they’re looking at the wrong problem. Most SaaS has completely lost the plot by chasing feature bloat instead of solving problems well.

Look at Atlassian. Jira used to be a solid issue tracker. Now it’s fractured into Jira Align, Jira Service Management, Jira Product Discovery and a dozen other variations.

Notion started as a clean documentation tool. Then it became a database. Then project management. Now it tries to be everything and excels at nothing specific.

ClickUp follows the same playbook. Task management became database management became documentation became whiteboarding.

When SaaS companies go down this rabbit hole, users naturally gravitate toward simpler alternatives. If someone can build 80% of your bloated feature set in six months using AI, maybe the problem isn’t AI disruption. Maybe the problem is that you built 300% more than anyone actually needed.

Researchers proved something wild about AI training.

They took a model that loved owls. Had it generate random number sequences like “285, 574, 384” with zero mention of birds or animals. Then trained a fresh model on just those numbers.

The new model developed an owl obsession.

Same thing worked with dangerous behaviors. Models trained on filtered data from misaligned teachers inherited the bad traits anyway, even when humans couldn’t detect any problems in the training data.

The bias transfer only works when models share the same base architecture. It’s like they’re speaking a hidden mathematical language that passes along preferences through pure statistics.

The ghost in the machine.

There are two kinds of people in any organization: the “what if” dreamers and the “how could we” builders. The dreamers get the ball rolling. The builders keep it rolling.

On rare occasions, you find someone who can do both. But most people lean heavily one way or the other. The magic happens when you understand which one you are and deliberately surround yourself with people who complement your strengths.

Most leadership courses start backwards. “This is active listening” and ”these are the five stages of X and y” instead of asking what you already know about it.

They treat working professionals like empty vessels. You sit through basic definitions when what you need are frameworks for the actual situations you face.

Someone might have a brilliant way to think about difficult conversations, but you have to wade through “communication is important” to find it. Then you get stuck taking tests on team development stages when you’ve been managing people for years.

The platform I want would start with your actual problems.

You tell it about the team member who pushes back on every decision. The stakeholder meeting that always goes sideways. The conversation you’ve been avoiding for weeks.

Then it creates scenarios based on your real context. It pulls from expert knowledge but tailors everything to situations you recognize.

No gatekeeping quizzes. No forced progression through modules you don’t need.

The AI learns what you can handle by watching how you think through problems. It escalates complexity naturally as you work through challenges that actually matter to your job.

Learning happens while you solve real problems.

Buy a stack of A3s and fancy pens.

Learn the basics of rectangles, circles and arrows.

It’ll do wonders when you want to sketch something or explain a flow quickly.

Over the weekend I built and shipped my 5-minute timer app. You can download FirstFive at firstfive.app.

The app applies psychological research about micro-commitments and the Zeigarnik Effect. Your brain sees 5 minutes as non-threatening, which bypasses the resistance that keeps you stuck. Once you start, your brain naturally wants to continue what it began.

I started using this method back in April. Before that, I had nothing but a vague idea about committing to 15 minutes, which never seemed to work. The switch to 5 minutes made all the difference. Building the actual app was a weekend sprint, but those months of testing the concept with basic phone timers proved it works consistently.

FirstFive is free forever with no ads or subscriptions. It’s iPhone only for now and designed with privacy in mind. The timer counts up silently after 5 minutes instead of creating pressure with alarms.

If you struggle with getting started on tasks you keep avoiding, the science suggests this approach can help. Sometimes the smallest commitment creates the biggest breakthrough.

The rock felt loose under my fingers. With my daughter strapped to my back, every step along this Goa cliff face felt increasingly wrong. But the travel book had been so confident about this route. According to the guide, we should follow this exact path to reach an incredible viewpoint with excellent food options on the other side.

We had trusted that book completely. It was published by a major travel company, filled with detailed descriptions and clear directions. When we reached Baga, we followed its instructions precisely: cross to the opposite side of the small river, then follow the cliffside path upward. The book knew what it was talking about, right?

Except with each step, reality told a different story. The path felt unstable. The handholds seemed unreliable. The route that looked manageable on paper felt treacherous in person. Still, we kept going. The book said this was the way.

Until I reached that moment. One more step forward, and I genuinely believed my daughter and I might slip and fall into the water below. We turned around and retraced our steps to safety.

That book probably contained accurate information when it was written. But trails erode. Weather changes landscapes. Development alters access points. Rivers carve new paths. The book couldn’t update itself to reflect these realities, yet there we were, following instructions that no longer matched the terrain.

This happens everywhere. Medical practices persist decades after research proves them ineffective. Business strategies continue long after market conditions make them obsolete. Academic theories get repeated in textbooks years after new evidence contradicts them. We trust the source more than we trust our own direct experience of current conditions.

Every step felt wrong, but we kept going because the book seemed so certain. Physical danger made the stakes obvious, but usually the costs of following outdated information are subtler and take longer to reveal themselves.

Organizations cling to strategies that worked in previous decades. Investors follow conventional wisdom that no longer applies. People make career decisions based on advice from different economic realities. The guidance retains its authority even when circumstances have fundamentally changed.

Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is turn around before the map leads you over a cliff.

Watching yesterday’s Apple presentation reminded me what we’ve lost since the shift to presentations without live audiences.

For years now, tech companies have perfected the art of polished, pre-recorded presentations. Even when they return to live events, they’re chasing the wrong thing.

Steve Jobs knew something that today’s tech companies have forgotten. People don’t buy products. They buy feelings.

Remember when he pulled the MacBook Air out of a envelope? Pure theater. The setup, the anticipation, the reveal. He made thinness visible in a way no spec sheet ever could.

Compare that to today’s presentations. Beautiful production design, brilliant technology, but missing the spark.

Jobs presented to regular people who might fall in love with a product. Today’s presentations are aimed at developers, investors, and tech journalists.

Just watch how many times they mention specifications versus how many times they talk about what it feels like to use the product.

Jobs wasn’t just a great presenter. He was the last great tech evangelist who understood that selling technology means selling dreams.

Everyone since has been trying to sell features.

There’s an LCD Soundsystem song called “Losing My Edge” about getting older and watching the next generation discover what you thought was yours.

My son is bouncing off the walls about tonight’s Apple event.

I remember being that person. Sixteen, seventeen years ago, clearing my calendar for every Steve Jobs keynote. Not just for the products, but for the theater. The way he’d pause before revealing something. How he sold feelings instead of specifications.

“Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone.”

The confidence. The showmanship. The genuine surprise.

I watch my son look at youtube about the new rumoured Apple devices and feel something I can’t quite name. Pride, maybe. Or recognition. He’s discovering his own version of that electric feeling I used to chase.

But I’m not bitter about losing it.

You don’t stay a youth forever. You develop immunity to hype cycles. You’ve seen enough “revolutionary” products to know the difference between marketing and genuine breakthrough.

The edge I’m losing isn’t about being behind the curve.

It’s about having lived through enough cycles to see the patterns. To appreciate the craft without falling for the spell.

Maybe that’s not a loss at all.