Howdy Founders 🤠,

This past week, a bunch of folks asked me: "What tools do you use to build apps quickly? What cool things can you do with AI?"

So, I figured I'd lay it all out here and also share a little about a project I've been tinkering with.

Let’s talk about

• A pivot for my app FormBee 🔄

• The AI tools I use to build apps quickly 🚀

• Community Spotlight Request

• Idea of the week 🎵😊

A pivot for my app FormBee 🔄

FormBee started as a straightforward solution for collecting feedback from users on your website. You add our script to your site, and we collect feedback and analyze it with AI. Analysis will result in TODO tickets we would manage for you.

So, Why the Pivot?

Well, let's just say the market gave us a resounding "meh." Zero sales, low landing page retention—the works. The final nail in the coffin was when I handed out free trial codes on Twitter, and crickets. Not a single account created.

The New Direction

Time to shake things up! I'm pivoting FormBee into a Customer Feedback-Focused Chatbot. Picture this: a chatbot you embed on your site, trained with your materials, but with a twist—it actively listens to user feedback and logs it for you. All that juicy feedback gets compiled in a dashboard, where we can spot trends and see what people are really asking for.

What's Next?

I'm knee-deep in implementing these features and plan to launch the revamped FormBee soon. If you're itching to beta test or have some wild ideas you'd like to see, hit me up!

The Tools I Use to Build Apps Quickly 🚀

I’ve been writing software for over a decade now and the ecosystem has remained fairly consistent, but only just recently with AI have my go to tools changed dramatically. I figured I’d let y’all know what’s worked for me.

Cursor (IDE)🖥️

I’m a long-time VS Code user, and a couple years ago I was using GitHub CoPilot’s VS Code extension all the time. Fast forward to today and Cursor (a fork of the VS Code OSS Repository) has absolutely dominated the GitHub Copilot Extension in every way.

For one, Cursor has a Chat sidebar where you can either chat with AI about the currently open file OR even scan your entire codebase and chat about everything in you application!

See that Apply button in the top right of the AI's response? Click it, and boom—the code merges directly into your file. No more copying and pasting or figuring out where the AI's code snippets fit. It's a lifesaver, especially since AI sometimes skips over "boring" code with comments like "… existing code …".

Also note on the bottom left of the text input there is a dropdown that’s currently selecting claude-3.5-sonnet. This is a model select dropdown and allows you to swap between a bunch of different models from ChatGPT to Anthropic.

Fun fact: If you type a URL into the text chat bar, Cursor scrapes that URL and feeds it into the prompt, which is super cool and useful.

ChatGPT o1-preview 🧠

Anytime I need a document, copy, or ideas I immediately open up the o1-preview chat on ChatGPT. o1-preview is absolutely killer at reasoning through requests and questions. It’s particularly helpful at creating beginner business plans. Things like

• Identify potential ICPs for X idea

• Coming up with creative marketing strategies

• Reasoning through sales funnels and optimizing them

• Coming up with monetization models for projects

I love o1-preview so much!

Replicate / Flux 🎨

Image generation is super helpful for building startups. You have ideas in your head for logos, marketing material, but if you’re like me you’re not artistic enough to make those ideas a reality. Getting really good at image generation prompting and understanding image gen models can help so much.

• Generate a character / logo (tell it to give the logo a solid white or black background)

• Throw the image into Canva and use the background remover tool

• Download your logo as SVG, WEBP, PNG, whatever

I've created every one of my logos this way! The best part is it’s super cheap on Replicate, Flux models are between $0.02 - $0.04 per image.

Community Spotlight Request

Last week a bunch of you wanted to hear cool stories from the community. So consider this my official request for cool things you’re doing.

• Had a really good year for your business? Tell us how!

• Built something really neat? Share with everyone!

Reply or reach out on Twitter to setup a chat!

Idea of the Week : Mood-Based Playlist Generator 🎵😊

Concept:

An app that creates music playlists based on your current mood detected through facial expressions or voice tone.

How It Works:

• Mood Detection: Uses your device's camera or microphone to assess mood.

• Playlist Curation: Pulls songs that match or improve your mood.

• Adaptive Learning: Learns your preferences over time.

Why It's Cool:

• Enhances your emotional state.

• Introduces you to new music.

• Perfect for when you're feeling those mid-week blues.

So there you have it—a week packed with AI tools, pivots, and big ideas. Just another day in the founder's life.

Feel free to reply and let me know your thoughts, especially if you've got some AI tools up your sleeve or want to get involved with the new version of FormBee.

Until next time, keep building, keep innovating, and maybe give Cursor a whirl—you might just fall in love.

Love you 🙂,

Ronald