The Reality of Solo Development
I run five products. Alone. No team, no funding, no excuses. The secret isn't working harder — it's working with AI agents that understand context, follow patterns, and ship code I'd be proud to write myself.
Claude Code as Engineering Team
I use Claude Code for everything: brainstorming features, writing specs, implementing code, reviewing PRs, and even writing these dev notes. But the key insight isn't "AI writes code." It's "AI multiplies judgment."
I still make every architectural decision. I still review every line. I still say no to features that don't matter. The AI handles the mechanical work — scaffolding, boilerplate, test generation, cross-repo consistency — so I can focus on the decisions that matter.
The Interview-Driven Workflow
Every piece of content starts as an interview. I tell Claude what I'm thinking, it asks sharp questions, and together we produce something better than either of us would alone. This post started that way. The dev notes on every Menoko product start that way.
The Numbers
In the past week, I shipped: teaser landing pages for 4 products, a design system, a content pipeline, and 20+ blog posts. That's not hustle culture. That's leverage.
What I'd Tell Past Me
Stop trying to do everything yourself. Stop trying to hire a team you can't afford. Start treating AI as a collaborator, not a tool. The products aren't worse because AI helped build them. They're better — because I had time to think.