· David Webb · founding · 2 min read
Why howibuild.ai Exists
Build logs and founder lessons from the trenches. Real-time insights for solo founders, product operators, and technically minded builders.
Build Logs, Not Blog Posts
Traditional startup blogs are polished, sanitized, and written months after the fact. They miss the messy, real-time reality of building.
howibuild.ai is different. This is a build log—raw, unfiltered documentation of what it’s actually like to build products as a solo founder.
For the Technically Minded
This isn’t for everyone. If you’re looking for high-level strategy or motivational content, you won’t find it here.
This is for:
- Solo founders wrestling with technical decisions
- Product operators managing multiple moving parts
- Builders who want to see the real implementation details
- Anyone curious about the nitty-gritty of product development
Radical Transparency
No sugar-coating. No post-hoc wisdom. Just real problems, real solutions, and real failures as they happen.
When I break my deployment with exposed API keys—you’ll read about it. When I spend three hours debugging a database permission issue—that’s a post. When an AI tool gives me bad advice—I’ll call it out.
The Anti-CMS Approach
Every post here lives as Markdown in a Git repository. No fancy content management system. No editorial calendar. No marketing funnel.
Just:
- Write a
.mdfile - Commit and push to GitHub
- Netlify deploys automatically
- Post is live
This workflow keeps the barrier to sharing low and the authenticity high.
Guest Contributors Welcome
Built something interesting? Solved a gnarly technical problem? Have a founder war story worth sharing?
Send your Markdown file to [email protected] or submit a pull request.
The only requirement: it has to be real, technical, and useful to fellow builders.
Reality Check
You won’t find:
- Growth hacking listicles
- “10 Ways to Scale Your Startup” posts
- Motivational founder fluff
- Content marketing disguised as advice
You will find:
- Actual code snippets and implementation details
- Database architecture decisions and their consequences
- Tool evaluations based on real usage
- Time-stamped problem-solving in real-time
Built With, For Builders
This site itself is a case study. Built with AstroWind, deployed on Netlify, tracked with PostHog. Dark mode by default because that’s how we actually work.
Even the domain choice—.ai—isn’t because this is an AI product. It’s because artificial intelligence tools are now part of every builder’s workflow, and we need to be honest about when they help and when they mislead.
Ready to build in public? Welcome to the trenches.
