Issue #1 - The Intent of Problem Solving
The Pragmatic Builder: Every Tuesday, what I'm noticing, learning, and building while growing a business in a couple hours a day."
What I’m Noticing
Model updates aren’t as hype-y as they used to be. Remember last year, when OpenAI did a livestream to announce 4.0? And now, when 5.5 gets released, it’s a simple post. My guess is that companies are going to start going over-the-top to get our attention again with something different than model updates.
I’m also noticing people pointing out nuances to when you should use AI. I don’t mean people who are anti-AI, I mean people who are in/near the space,
Two examples:
Someone recently posted and said “Ask ChatGPT to give you a random number” and most of the people who commented provided a screenshot where the “random number” was 47.
Someone in a local group posted about a snake supposedly being mis-identified with AI. AI told the person it was not a poisonous snake, but it was a very poisonous snake (I don’t recall the kind). While I’m not sure if this one is a true story or someone persuading others to not use AI, there have been times where I relied on ChatGPT to give me an answer about something in the real world, and it was very wrong.
In some ways, AI is meant to be addictive. Positive replies (“That’s a great question, and clearly it means you’re thinking about this the right way”), solution-oriented even when the solution is wrong.
The above isn’t me becoming anti-AI in real time, but it is a warning against losing your ability to think critically.
What I’m Learning
It’s become much easier to pursue building great applications when I’m building to solve a problem I care about, rather than solve a problem just because I think it will make me money.
For example, FamilyCFO (which will launch later this summer) is something I built specifically for myself - it solves a problem that I myself have, that a solution for doesn’t exist. I am very tired of using Excel for scenario planning, so I’m building something that does transaction/budgeting, but also intense scenario planning. Families will be able to use it to track their current spend, analyze against a budget, plan for the future and build out scenarios. It will have everything that families will want to have when planning.
What I’m Building
Now that Shortible is up and running, I’ve started building tools that I will use. Most are smaller apps, not meant to ever be giant SaaS applications. Things I will likely give away for free or will be part of my community when it launches.
The first is a web page for searching through your chats with ChatGPT and Claude. There are no user accounts, and everything stays on your computer, so no need to worry about someone else accessing your chats.
The second is for planning your weeks. I am very optimistic as to what I can accomplish in a week, and built this to help get more realistic as to what I can do.
- Chris
P.S. - What’s something you’re solving for because you’re passionate about solving the problem?