AI opens up the world. Now build something that sells.

AI opens up the world to you. It searches websites, summarizes documents, makes logos and edits videos.

But what happens when the rubber meets the road? You want to build a product. Something people pay for. Or a tool that makes a factory floor run smoother. Where do you start?

And how do you stay out of the slop? I was going to joke that it'll be in the dictionary soon. It already is. Merriam-Webster made "slop" its 2025 word of the year, and they meant the AI kind.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've watched AI take over. Companies are telling people that if they aren't using it, they aren't efficient. Is that true? Maybe. But who's counting the cost of the tools built wrong, the products that don't work, and the bad data that flows out of both?

LinkedIn is full of comics about it. You had a problem. You got AI to fix it. Now you've got a bigger problem, and no idea where to start.

Ask a kid to find something in the house and you get chaos. Ask them to find it in one room and they find it.

That's where I start. The kid didn't get smarter. The problem got smaller. AI works the same way. Give it the whole house and it guesses. Give it one room, one job and a clear wall around it, and it does the job.

I've built a number of products and companies in a short time using AI. I'm no different than you. I just know how to set the guardrails.

That's what these posts are about. How to build with AI one room at a time, so what you ship works and doesn't turn into slop.

Source: Merriam-Webster's 2025 word of the year is "slop", AP, December 15, 2025.