The day I became a startup founder (sort of)

“There has been an error, please try again. Servers may be busy right now due to high demand.”

Weird.

I try again.

Same thing. Refresh the browser. Same thing. Try a different browser. Same thing.

What the …?

Earlier that day, I experimented with an AI writing tool. I don’t normally use them while creating LinkedIn posts. Since all those I’ve tried sound too much like AI, can’t replicate my voice, or they spit out something that I would have to spend more time editing than I would to write the post on my own.

But this tool I’d just purchased seemed promising.

The post drafts would still need some heavy editing. But I was willing to give it a go.

Everything worked fine during the trial, but now I can’t use the tool at all.

I contacted support. They replied after half a day: “Try again, please.”

I did. Same error.

“You fool,” I thought.

“You paid for an AI tool from some tech bro that doesn’t even work, was probably vibe-coded, and it wouldn’t produce good enough posts anyway.”

But then I got an idea.

“Wait a second, what’s stopping me from creating the same kind of tool, feeding it with my own posts, and seeing what it produces?”

And that’s when I decided to pursue it.

The way I saw it, it was a WIN-WIN situation:

• I will either fail and lose some money on AI tokens. But learn how to use AI in .NET apps, and document the whole process. WIN.
• Or succeed, make loads of money, buy Lambos, and move to a country where it’s summer all year round. WIN.

There is no 3rd option.

So here’s the plan:

1. Create a frontend using React. Leave this part to AI.
2. Create an initial backend using .NET. Experiment with AI agents, because why not.
3. Figure out how to communicate with OpenAI, or some other API.
4. Load my posts into the tool.
5. Deploy to Azure.
6. Since AI creates many security issues, take some time to investigate the generated code.

This is the start of a series where I’ll document the whole journey. From zero to a working LinkedIn post generator.