A year ago, I'd never written a single line of code.

Now I've taught myself to build real software — and I'm sharing the whole messy, honest journey in public.

This is where it lives. New chapters land here as the story unfolds.

Chapter 1 — Where it started

The intro that kicked it all off.

Part 1 · the beginning

Chapter 2 — Picking it back up

Life got in the way for a bit. Here's the honest re-entry — and a tease of what's still coming.

Part 2 · the re-entry

Chapter 3 — ChatGPT told me no. Twice.

Back to December, and the moment the tool I trusted told me my idea wasn't mine to build.

Episode 1 · December

Chapter 4 — So I asked a different AI

Same question. Different tool. This one said “sure, of course.”

Episode 2 · the yes

Chapter 5 — The app that painted pets

I saw an app making $100k a month painting people’s pets. My first thought had nothing to do with the money.

Episode 3 · Pawtrait Pals is born

Chapter 6 — A second company, by accident

My mom’s dog’s groomer accidentally handed me a second company. I went there to reach rescues. That is not how it went.

Episode 4 · Pawtrait Pros is born

Chapter 7 — Moving two apps mid-build

Pals was already live. Pros was half-built right underneath it. Keeping both running on Replit got expensive, fast, so I packed everything up and moved both to Claude.

Episode 5 · Replit to Claude