Building the product

This area covers how the product actually gets made: tech stacks, AI coding tools, no-code, building without a technical background, scope, design, support and analytics. Because “what’s your tech stack?” is asked in almost every interview, it is also a census of indie tooling.

Three ideas have the broadest support. A de facto default stack has emerged, Next.js, Supabase and Vercel for the web and React Native or Swift for mobile, increasingly paired with Cursor or Claude Code (Loïc Berthelot · Loïc Berthelot (Nov 2025) ▶ 11:11) (CJ Zafir · CJ Zafir (May 2025) ▶ 14:08) (Blake Anderson · Blake Anderson (Dec 2024) ▶ 15:36). AI coding has lowered the technical barrier: non-coders now ship paying products, often in days or a couple of weeks (CJ Zafir · CJ Zafir (May 2025) ▶ 03:06) (Hassam · Hassam (Jan 2026) ▶ 10:49) (Tomer · Tomer (Aug 2026) ▶ 03:21). And winners do one thing very well (CJ Zafir · CJ Zafir (May 2025) ▶ 02:19) (Yasser Elsaid · Yasser Elsaid (Jul 2025) ▶ 07:48), backed by fast, founder-led support (Fernando Pessagno · Fernando Pessagno (Dec 2024) ▶ 09:59) (Dmytro Krasun · Dmytro Krasun (Nov 2024) ▶ 10:31).

The main debate is how much AI really changes things. Some call it transformative, one person doing a team’s work (Alex Finn · Alex Finn (Jun 2025) ▶ 03:28) (Nico · Nico (Mar 2025) ▶ 13:52); others say the productivity gain is overstated (Marc Lou · Marc Lou (Apr 2026) ▶ 07:40) (Adam Lyttle · Adam Lyttle (Feb 2025) ▶ 13:50). Guests also split on whether a non-technical founder still needs a technical partner (Colin McIntosh · Colin McIntosh (Jan 2025) ▶ 08:38) or can let AI act as the CTO (Paulius Masalskas · Paulius Masalskas (May 2025) ▶ 12:34).

Start with Non-technical founder — ship with AI, then Tech stack, Vibe coding and Scope & features.

Pages in this area

Live debates

• Should a small product A/B test everything? — see Analytics & A/B testing
• Data-driven or intuition-driven? — see Analytics & A/B testing
• Should you use AI for design? — see Design & simplicity
• Should you migrate off no-code as you scale? — see No-code builders
• Does a non-technical founder still need a technical co-founder? — see Building as a non-technical founder
• Should you build what users ask for? — see Scope & features
• After launch, keep shipping features or freeze the product? — see Scope & features
• Should support be handled by AI? — see Support & feedback loops
• When in the day should a founder do support? — see Support & feedback loops
• Build for scale from day one, or cut corners and rebuild later? — see Tech stack

Blueprints

• Non-technical founder — ship with AI