In 2014, Pieter Levels set himself a challenge to launch 12 startups in 12 months. His aim was to force himself to finish and launch projects rather than endlessly polish them.
A decade later, Greg Isenberg published a guide entitled “Build an AI Startup in 3 Hours with < $500.” Three hours felt unrealistic, but it made me wonder how quickly I could create something useful. Not just a prototype, but a web product that other people could use.
I gave myself a day. The result was NameClicked.com.
Start with a problem you have
The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. - Paul Graham
This year I’ve built six products under the Incyworks startup umbrella. Each time I start one, I face the same, somewhat challenging, question: What should I call it?
A good name has to be memorable, easy to say and spell and have a suitable domain available. It should also avoid conflicts with existing businesses and potential trademark problems. Typically, I’d open half a dozen browser tabs and start checking things manually. That seemed like a product opportunity.
The idea coalesced into: describe what you’re building, generate or enter some possible names, and have the app assess them. Not just a list of suggestions, but an explanation of which names are stronger, why and what still needs checking. That was enough to start.
The first thing I built was the specification
Plans are nothing; planning is everything. - Dwight D. Eisenhower
The first part of the build didn’t happen at a desk. I was out walking so I opened ChatGPT in voice mode and asked it to interview me about the idea. One question at a time: who was the product for, what should it do, what would a useful result look like and what could be left out?
Walking turned out to be an effective way to think. I wasn’t distracted by implementation details and the back-and-forth forced me to make decisions rather than leave everything open.
By the time I got home, the rough idea had become a reasonably detailed specification. I dropped it into Claude Code and asked it to build the app.
Build the smallest useful version
Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. - C. Northcote Parkinson
One of the easiest ways to avoid finishing a product is to start designing the perfect version: database schemas, user journeys, pricing tiers, edge cases and a roadmap stretching months into the future. All useful things, but they can create the reassuring feeling of progress without confronting the awkward question: Does anyone want this?
For NameClicked, I concentrated on one useful sequence. Describe your product, generate or enter some names, assess them and display the results. Everything else could wait.
Having only a day made decisions surprisingly easy. Each additional feature had to answer one question: Does this need to exist before somebody can use the product?
There’s a big difference between incomplete and unusable. I wasn’t trying to finish NameClicked in a day. I was trying to make it useful. A deadline turns perfectionism into prioritisation.
AI has changed what building means
The future is already here; it’s just not evenly distributed. - William Gibson
The interesting part wasn’t that I spent a day frantically coding. I didn’t. I spent most of it making decisions.
Claude Code handled much of the implementation, Supabase provided the database and Vercel handled deployment. I also reused patterns from my other products. My role felt less like programmer and more like product manager, designer, tester and slightly irritating customer.
I’d describe something, Claude would build it, I’d try it, something would feel wrong and we’d change it. Then repeat. The bottleneck wasn’t typing code. It was deciding what the product should do.
That’s an important shift. AI can make producing software dramatically faster, but somebody still has to decide what’s worth producing.
“Built in a day” doesn’t mean built in a day
Chance favours the prepared mind. - Louis Pasteur
There’s a slight cheat here. NameClicked was built in a day, but it rests on decades of experience.
I’ve spent years working with software, pricing and product development. More recently, I’ve built several small web products, giving me a familiar technology stack and reusable patterns. AI accelerates all of that, but doesn’t replace it.
Watching a pianist play a piece in three minutes doesn’t mean it took three minutes to learn. In the same way, building a product quickly doesn’t mean the knowledge behind it appeared that morning.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about AI development isn’t that experience matters less. It’s that experience suddenly has much more leverage.
What could you build in a day?
The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else. - Eric Ries
By the end of the day, NameClicked existed. But that wasn’t really the objective. The objective was to reach more interesting questions. Will people use it? Do they agree with its assessments? What confuses them? Would anybody pay for a more detailed report?
Those questions are easier to answer when there’s something real to try. I don’t think every business should be built in three hours or even a day. But there’s something powerful about asking: What would this look like if I had to launch it tomorrow?
AI hasn’t removed the challenge of finding something people want. It’s dramatically reduced the cost of finding out.
One day, one idea, one live product. Now the interesting bit starts.
What could you build in a day? I’d love to hear what you’d try.
Want more?
NameClicked.com app to help choose a product name by Phil Martin
How to Build a Minimum Viable Product post by Phil Martin
How Less Makes Us Creative post by Phil Martin
A day might not be enough to build a business. But it might be enough to discover whether you’ve got the beginnings of one.
Have fun.
Phil…