I’ve been trying to convince two friends to start businesses related to their professional training. Neither was interested for over a year due to the startup costs and the effort required to build a proper website (neither of them is technical). But recently, one friend decided to give it a shot. We met a few weeks ago, and she didn’t know where to start. The idea of starting a company seemed daunting and overwhelming. I suggested she create a simple website and see if she could get a handful of customers. Baby steps.

I told her not to waste money hiring someone to build a site. Instead, she should use an AI tool to create the first version of her site. These tools allow her to test her idea with zero upfront money—just time and energy. She wasn’t aware these tools existed but was curious to try them out (mainly because it was so much cheaper than hiring a developer).

Fast forward a week, and she’d completed the first draft of her site using an AI tool. She was surprised by what she was able to do with the tool in such a short period. She no longer felt overwhelmed or unsure where to start; she was motivated and energized. The tool lit a fire in her belly and gave her confidence. My other friend looked at her site, and it motivated him to launch a site using the same tool. Fast forward to today, and her site is done and launching. She’s got a few early customers lined up and is excited to test her concept. She’s incorporated her business and feels like she could really be an entrepreneur.

Watching my friends’ experiences has helped me understand the power of AI website builders like Lovable and the impact they can have on non-technical, early-stage entrepreneurs. The ability to take an idea and turn it into a product without hiring a developer or spending much money is so powerful. The need to hire someone technical or understand technical details has been a significant obstacle for many founders pursuing ideas. These tools remove that obstacle and allow non-technical founders to hack away and create whatever they have in mind. When more non-technical people who are considering entrepreneurship become comfortable with these tools, the number of entrepreneurs—and the pace of simple products coming to market—will increase.

I should note that tools like Lovable aren’t perfect. Any developer will tell you that there can be issues (scalability, security, etc.) with apps created by non-technical people using these tools. I agree with that. If someone can validate market demand using a Lovable-built website, it will likely need to be enhanced to meet the demands of a steady stream of paying customers. But that’s a high-class problem. In my opinion, these tools are great for testing an idea at low cost and low risk to validate if it’s worth pursuing.

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