I didn’t start out building things with AI.

In the beginning, I was mostly using it the same way everyone else was — writing content, organizing thoughts, brainstorming ideas, trying to feel more productive. It helped, but if I’m being honest, I was mostly producing more of the same. More drafts. More notes. More unfinished ideas.

The real shift didn’t happen through content. It happened through work. Slowly, through trying to build things that actually existed outside the screen.

I built my own website, LaceMoods. Not perfectly, and definitely not efficiently. Half the time I had no idea what I was doing. But I kept going.

Then I stepped back into B2B work again, and somewhere in that process I found my first client. That moment changed something in me. For the first time, AI stopped feeling like a writing assistant and started feeling more like a working partner — something I could think with while solving actual business problems.

After that, the way I used AI started changing naturally. Not just for content, but for product ideas, positioning, market research, outreach, customer understanding. Sometimes I used it while helping clients too — shaping brand stories, figuring out who they should be talking to, or simply organizing messy thoughts into something clearer.

None of this felt revolutionary at the time. But little by little, it changed how I worked.

Building Small Systems

I also started building small workflows for myself. Shopify connected with Zapier. Tiny automations running quietly in the background. Small repetitive tasks disappearing one by one.

And somewhere along the way, Notion quietly became one of my favorite tools too. I use it constantly now — organizing ideas, storing research, planning content, tracking business tasks, collecting random thoughts before they disappear again.

Nothing about my system is particularly advanced. But for someone who used to keep everything scattered across tabs, screenshots, and unfinished notes, even small systems started to feel empowering.

The Part That Surprised Me Most

The part that surprised me the most was code.

For most of my life, anything technical immediately made me shut down mentally. I assumed coding belonged to other people — engineers, developers, “technical” founders. Not me.

Now, when I run into problems, I usually try to understand them first instead of avoiding them. Most of the time, AI walks me through it step by step, and I make small changes myself. A layout adjustment. A broken section. A small fix.

I’m still a beginner. Honestly, sometimes I still feel lost. But I no longer automatically assume that technology is something I can’t touch. And maybe that’s been the biggest shift of all.

Still In the Middle

I’m still in the middle of this. Still figuring things out. Still making mistakes almost every week.

But the work feels different now. Less like I’m endlessly producing content for the internet. And more like I’m slowly building systems, skills, and businesses that can actually stand on their own.

I write about building with AI — honestly, not perfectly. Follow along at FlowAnRiver.