Ship Your First App in 5 Days
Five focused days — roughly 1–2 hours each — is genuinely enough to take a first app from idea to a live URL with today’s AI tools. What kills first projects is not difficulty but sequence: styling before the skeleton, feature two before feature one, “one more thing” before shipping. This roadmap locks the sequence. Each day has a hard “done when” and the one pitfall we see most at that stage. Print it and cross the days off — momentum is the whole game.
Decide & plan (no code allowed)
Done when: someone else reads your plan and understands what you're building.
Pitfall: adding a 4th must-have feature. Version 2 exists for a reason.
Skeleton — every screen exists, nothing works
Done when: you can walk through every screen, even though buttons are fake.
Pitfall: making it pretty. Styling before it works is procrastination in disguise.
The core feature — make the main thing real
Done when: the main feature works with real data — and you can explain how.
Pitfall: starting feature #2 while #1 is half-broken.
Break it, fix it, polish it
Done when: a friend uses it for 2 minutes without asking you anything.
Pitfall: fixing rare bugs before common ones. Fix what a normal user hits first.
Ship & demo
Done when: someone who isn't in your house has used your app.
Pitfall: “I'll ship after one more feature.” No. Ship, then iterate.