You don’t need 50 tools. Here’s the lean tech stack I recommend for non-technical entrepreneurs who want to build with AI. FOR LEARNING AND PROTOTYPING: Claude Pro ($20/month) — Your primary AI coding partner. This is where you’ll spend most of your time. FOR BUILDING FULL APPS: Cursor Pro ($20/month) — When you’re ready to build multi-file applications. It integrates AI directly into a professional code editor. FOR INSTANT DEPLOYMENT: Bolt.new or Lovable — Build and deploy web apps entirely in the browser. Great for MVPs. FOR HOSTING: Vercel (free tier) — Deploy your web apps for free. This is what we use in the Starter Kit. Supabase (free tier) — Database and authentication without managing servers. FOR DESIGN: Canva Pro ($13/month) — Logos, social posts, and marketing materials. FOR BUSINESS OPS: Notion (free) — Project management and docs. Stripe — Accept payments. TOTAL COST TO START: Under $55/month. That’s less than most people spend on subscriptions they don’t use. Start simple, add tools only when you hit a real limitation. What’s in your current tech stack? Share below! 👇

Want to automate your email responses, follow-ups, or customer communication? Here’s a prompt template to build an email automation system. THE PROMPT: "Build me an email automation dashboard using React. Here’s what I need: PURPOSE: I run a [BUSINESS TYPE] and I want to automate [SPECIFIC EMAIL TYPE — e.g., follow-up emails, order confirmations, customer onboarding sequences]. FEATURES:- Template editor: Let me create and save email templates with variable fields like [CUSTOMER_NAME], [ORDER_NUMBER], [PRODUCT], etc.- Preview panel: Show me what the email will look like with sample data filled in- Sequence builder: Let me create multi-step email sequences with delays (e.g., Day 1: Welcome, Day 3: Tips, Day 7: Check-in)- Template library: Pre-built templates I can customize- Dashboard: Show stats like emails sent, open rate placeholders, and sequence status DESIGN: Professional, clean, left sidebar navigation. Use a calming blue color scheme. Include realistic sample data for a [BUSINESS TYPE] business." Pro tip: Once you have the UI built, you can connect it to actual email services like SendGrid or Resend using their APIs. Start with the interface first, then add the backend. 💡

Here’s the exact workflow we teach inside Shipping Skool to go from an idea in your head to a live product on the internet: STEP 1: SET UP THE FOUNDATION (Lesson 1) — Install the Next.js Starter Kit. Get your development environment ready. This takes 30-60 minutes and you only do it once. After this, you have a ship-ready template you can use for every project. STEP 2: WRITE YOUR PRD (Lesson 2) — Before you touch AI, write down exactly what you’re building. Your Product Requirements Document is the blueprint. The better your PRD, the better your AI output. STEP 3: BUILD THE LANDING PAGE (Lesson 3) — Every product needs a front door. Build a professional landing page that explains what your product does and captures interest. This is where customers land. STEP 4: PUSH TO PRODUCTION (Lesson 4) — Deploy your app to the internet. Connect your domain. Go live. Real people can now use what you built. That’s it. Four steps. The Start Vibe Coding course walks you through each one with video tutorials and templates. Most people complete the entire course in a weekend. What are you waiting for? Go to the Classroom and start Lesson 1. 🔥

I'm giving you the exact starter kit I used to build EasyFlip — for free When I started building EasyFlip, I didn't want to spend months setting up authentication, payments, databases, and all the boring stuff before I could even get to the actual product. So I used a SaaS starter kit that came with everything pre-built: - User authentication (Google sign-in, sessions, the works) - Subscription billing with Polar.sh - AI chat integration with OpenAI - File uploads with Cloudflare R2 - PostgreSQL database with Drizzle ORM - Beautiful UI components with shadcn/ui - Dark/light mode, responsive design, analytics All built on Next.js 15 and TypeScript — the same stack the pros use. I took this kit, plugged in eBay's API and some AI features, and that became EasyFlip. The foundation was already done. I just had to focus on what makes my app unique. Now I'm making it available to everyone in this community — completely free. Grab it here: https://github.com/beaujohnson1/beau-starter-kit Clone it, run npm install, set up your environment variables, and you've got a fully functional SaaS app ready to customize. Whether you're building an AI tool, a marketplace, a dashboard — whatever your idea is, this gets you to the starting line in minutes instead of months. If you want a full walkthrough on how to set everything up step by step, check out the course in the Classroom. I walk you through the entire process so you're not guessing. Stop planning. Start shipping.

The biggest mistake I see new vibe coders make? They jump straight into prompting without knowing what they’re building. Imagine hiring a contractor to build your house and saying "just make it nice." You’d end up with something, but probably not what you wanted. The same thing happens when you prompt AI without a plan. That’s why Lesson 2 in our Start Vibe Coding course is all about the Product Requirements Document (PRD). Here’s what a good PRD includes: THE PROBLEM: What pain point are you solving? Who has this problem? How are they solving it now? THE SOLUTION: What does your product do? What are the core features (not nice-to-haves)? What does the user experience look like step by step? THE TECH SPECS: What framework are you using? (We use Next.js in the Starter Kit.) What pages/routes do you need? What data does the app need to store? THE DESIGN: What’s the vibe? (Clean, bold, playful, professional?) What colors and fonts? Reference sites you like. When you hand a PRD to Claude or Cursor, the output quality jumps dramatically. You go from "this isn’t what I wanted" to "this is exactly what I had in mind." If you haven’t gone through Lesson 2 yet, go do it now. It’ll save you hours of frustration. 🚀