Curious Companion - Using Claude Code to Build Custom Tech Solutions

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE

In this episode I walk through how I used Claude Code to check off the second item on my AI wishlist: a custom dashboard for my 1:1 messaging coaching clients. I cover the planning process, the tech stack I used, and what connecting external tools like Acuity and Google Drive actually entailed. I cover what I believe to be the biggest limitations of vibe coding with AI, namely usage limits and not knowing what you don’t know, and round out the episode by making the case that personal custom tech solutions are already the next big thing, just siloed to the early adopters for now.

Patience, Not Tech Magic

Remember that wishlist I spoke about in episode 36? Well, last week I used Claude Code to check off the second item: a custom dashboard for my 1:1 messaging coaching clients.

Y’all, yes, vibecoding with AI requires a bit of tech tenacity, but like I’ve said before, it’s patience more than anything. You literally communicate with it via natural language and can just ask it anything. It will walk you through step-by-step for anything that you need to do. If you can express what you want, there’s a very good chance that AI can build it for you.

The Real Limitations

In many ways, the sky is the limit when it comes to building with AI, but there are two very practical and realistic limitations that I believe are front and center when it comes to building:

1. You’re paying for usage, and you can hit your usage limits. (Again, I think that these usage limits are a very good thing.)

The solutions for this:

Pay more (higher usage limits)
Use a model that uses less tokens — I’ve built everything with Sonnet as opposed to the more token-hungry Opus
Do some of it yourself (AI-assisted coding)
Ask better questions and need less back-and-forth because you know what you’re doing (yes, I realize how foolish this solution sounds, but it becomes a viable option as you gain more experience)

2. You don’t know what you don’t know and so you don’t think to ask AI to include it in the build.

Example: you might not know that you need a way to deploy whatever it builds for you so it’s not just available on your local browser. You might not know that you need a database attached so that it stores information between sessions and you can access it from all your devices.

The solution? Fortunately this is largely just a matter of getting your learn on. Keep consuming this newsletter. Lean into trial and error. Learn as you go. And then simply ask Claude (or your LLM of choice) how to solve the problems as they come up for you.

Start With What You Hate

So, for the eleventy billionth time, my goal with these episodes is largely just to expose you to things so you realize what’s even possible. I’m not here to tell you you need to go try this stuff today. I just want you to know that it’s possible, and will realistically only become more possible as time goes on.

My hope is that you continue to live your life and run your business, and one day when you’re like, “Damn, I wish I could do X”, you think to yourself: I could probably build that with AI. and you give it a shot.

A great starting point for building these custom tech solutions is thinking about what you hate doing and figuring out a way to have the robots do that thing for you.

In last week’s episode, I wrote about how I had Claude Code build out an automation for my podcast workflow, namely all the copy and pasting nonsense that feels like it takes years to complete and that I hate so much.

This time around I had Claude Code build out a custom dashboard for my messaging coaching clients because it was driving me crazy to have everything everywhere, and I needed an organizational solution that would allow me to have all the things in one place without any extra bullshit or bloat.

The Build

My particular process for building out this custom dashboard was perhaps a little different than yours will be, namely because I already knew the framework and components I wanted Claude to use. (FYI folks, a custom dashboard is just a custom web app, aka just a collection of web pages. Nothing crazy.) I also knew I’d need a database, and I knew which provider I wanted to use for that, along with which service I wanted to use to deploy it so I could access it from anywhere.

For the nerds who care, here’s the tech stack I like to use:

Framework: Next.js
Database: Supabase
Deployment platform: Vercel

There are absolutely other options out there, but the courses I took early on to learn about vibe coding used these, so I used these, and I’m still using them today.

So Tell Me What You Want…

For you, someone who may not have a single idea wtf any of those names in my preferred tech stack are, you can absolutely just tell Claude what you want and what you’re trying to do, and it will make recommendations.

Two things to note here.

1. You’ll be building this custom tech solution with Claude Code, not Claude.ai. I know I said “tell Claude”, but I want to make sure you’re clear on the process. You can Google “install Claude Code desktop app” and it will walk you through how to install it. Yes, googling it is really the easiest way to find the page you need. Anthropic has seemingly made everything about Claude Code easier, except for figuring out how to install it.

2. The more familiar you are with the problem, the better the solution will be. In building these custom tech solutions, as is the case with coming up with any solution, it’s advisable to wait until you have some reps doing that thing and executing that task, so you truly know what you want. From here, you can do what is arguably the most important step Claude: plan.

The Planning Session

Take a page out of ol’ Abe’s book and spend the majority of your time sharpening your axe. Worth noting, you can absolutely chat with Claude.ai in order to do overview planning and brainstorming, but the actual plan that gets executed by Claude Code will get planned out inside of Claude Code using Plan mode.

Some things to share with/ask Claude during planning:

Tell it you’re completely new to this
Ask for things you might have missed but would be helpful
Ask it for things you don’t know to ask but would improve the quality of the project
Ask about problems that could arise and how to prevent them
Ask about anything that you could possibly want this tech solution to do

One of the coolest things about AI is that you don’t have to settle for “good enough”, at least not initially, and especially when it comes to aesthetic or stylistic things.

I did have an experience with this dashboard project where I couldn’t get a “nice to have” feature to connect, but honestly it was fine because literally everything else I wanted (largely stylistic and button function-related) I asked for, and Claude Code was able to make it happen.

Making the Connections: Acuity and Google Drive

For my custom dashboard I wanted it to connect to my scheduling software, Acuity, so new bookings would automatically be added, organized by specific service, and pulled in with any corresponding dates. I also wanted it to connect with Google Drive so that a client-specific Google Drive folder would be created whenever someone booked.

Things like this are absolutely possible, but executing this functionality is where a lot of that tech tenacity comes in, because there are steps that you have to take and things you have to copy/paste because Claude doesn’t have access. (Honestly, this is a very good thing from a safety perspective.) But again, Claude will hold your hand through this and walk you through every single step.

Building It, Tweaking It, Troubleshooting It

Lest you think this was a 5-minute project brought to you by the magic of AI, building this custom dashboard absolutely took quite a few hours, but it is exactly what I need. I use it every day, multiple times a day, and I continue to tweak it as things come up that I realize aren’t exactly what I want.

And that to me is perhaps the coolest part about building your own custom tech solution: You can continue to change it as you need, and as what you need changes.

How often have you wished for a feature, or wished a button was in a different place, or that you could customize the text in a different place?! No need to wish. Now you can just change it.

Yes, troubleshooting and debugging are absolutely things you will need to do. Before writing this I spent about 45 minutes troubleshooting a webhook and figuring out why new appointments weren’t automatically showing up on the dashboard the way I wanted.

But, troubleshooting largely looks like taking a screenshot, uploading it to Claude, and saying, “It’s not working. This is what I’m seeing. Please help.“, and then having lots of patience.

The Next Big Thing

As per always, I’m not here to try and convince you to use Claude or pressure you to go and build anything. I write these things and share this info because I just want you to realize what is possible.I truly believe that personal custom tech solutions are the “next big thing”, and honestly, they’re already here, just siloed to the early adopters.

Building them is only going to become easier, and I really hope you take advantage of that and solve your own problems in a way that is an absolute perfect fit.

How I Used AI This Week

Each episode I share a quick example of how I used AI that week.

This week clearly I used AI to build the custom dashboard, but something else that I did that was super cool was have Claude build me a bomb-ass custom Google Sheet to give the folks who attended the live event that Lex and I hosted for our LextroMind mastermind.

The task was a fillable Google Sheet to be used as part of a drill for creating content, and I needed specific columns and some autofilled cells. I tried to have Claude Cowork do it (admittedly I still don’t really understand the utility of Cowork), but it straight up didn’t work, so I asked regular Claude, and voila, and it did it. The coolest part was that my “ask” consisted of me screenshotting and uploading two slides from my presentation and prompting Claude that I wanted to create a Google Sheet for the exercise presented on the slides.

Claude asked me a few clarifying questions then built it, formatted it, styled it with my brand colors, all within a matter of about ten minutes while Lex was presenting, and by the time it was my turn to present again I was able to share it with the attendees.

Definitely give it a try if you need a Google Sheet built out. It’s as simple as just telling Claude what you want.

Da Wrap-up

The era of custom tech solutions built by regular people is here, and it’s only going to get easier. I’m never here to pressure you into using anything, just know that when you’re ready, the robot will hold your hand the whole way.

As always, endlessly grateful for you and your curiosity.

Catch you next Thursday.

Maestro out.