Something shifted and most people haven't noticed yet.
The cost of building a real product dropped to nearly zero. The time it takes to go from idea to shipped software collapsed from months to hours. The team you used to need? Optional. The funding? Optional. The years of grinding toward a maybe? Optional.
The tools caught up to the imagination. And I think that's holy.
I mean that. I think the ability to create is the most God-like thing about us. He's the Big C Creator. We're the little c creators. Made in that image. Wired to build, to make, to bring things into existence that didn't exist before. And right now, in this exact moment, the gap between what you can imagine and what you can actually build is the smallest it's ever been in human history.
If that doesn't make you want to run to your desk and start making something, I don't know what will.
The Old Rules Are Gone
Two years ago, if you wanted to build a SaaS product, you needed a team. Frontend developer. Backend developer. Designer. Project manager. Maybe DevOps. Maybe a security consultant. You needed funding, or you needed to already be wealthy, or you needed to trade years of your life for someone else's vision in exchange for a salary that let you save slowly toward your own thing.
That was the deal. Build someone else's dream during the day, maybe chip away at yours at night if you had any energy left.
I don't know who needs to hear this, but that deal is off.
A full production application can be built in a day now. Sometimes a few hours. Plan the architecture, open the terminal, and go. The AI doesn't replace thinking. It amplifies it. You still have to know what you're building and why. The craft matters more than ever. But the execution time? The execution time collapsed.
What used to take a team of five people three months can ship before lunch.
That's not motivational fluff. That's just Tuesday.
We Were Made For This
Okay, I need to get a little theological on you for a second because this is the thing that lights me up more than anything else.
My consultancy is called Modern Mustard Seed. The name comes from the parable. Tiny seed, massive tree. That's the pattern I see everywhere in this new era. One person with one idea, planted in the right soil, with the right tools, growing into something that shelters hundreds or thousands of people.
But it's deeper than a business metaphor.
I believe we're made in the image of a Creator. Capital C. The one who spoke things into existence. And I think that creative impulse, that urge to build, to make, to bring something new into the world, that's not random. That's by design. We're little c creators carrying a spark of the original.
For most of history, that spark had to fight through so much friction. You had the idea but not the resources. You had the vision but not the team. You had the calling but not the capital. The gap between what you could imagine and what you could actually make was enormous. And a lot of beautiful things died in that gap.
Right now, in February 2026, that gap is almost gone.
The tools exist to go from spark to shipped in hours. From calling to creation in a day. From mustard seed to tree faster than anyone thought possible.
I don't think that's an accident. I think this is an invitation.
This Is What Play Looks Like Now
Here's what people get wrong about building with AI. They think it's cold. Mechanical. Robotic, even. They think “AI-powered” means less human, less creative, less alive.
It's the exact opposite and it's not even close.
When the cost of trying something is nearly zero, you try everything. You experiment wildly. You build the weird idea that's been living rent-free in your brain at 2am. You prototype it in an hour. If it's terrible, you laugh and move on. If it's magic, you ship it and do a little dance in your kitchen.
I come from a family of authors. Creativity has always been the thing that lights me up. Building with AI is the most creative work I've ever done. Not despite the technology. Because of it. The speed unlocks a kind of experimentation that wasn't possible before. You get to iterate four or five times in the window it used to take to finish a first draft.
And the fourth version? That's always the one that surprises you. That's the one where you lean back and go “oh. OH. That's better than what I imagined.”
That's the little c creator moment. That's the spark doing its thing.
The Creator Economy Just Got a New Engine
Everyone talks about the creator economy like it's about content. Make videos. Build an audience. Monetize with brand deals and courses and merch.
That's one layer. It's real and it works.
But there's a layer underneath it that almost nobody is talking about, and it's the one that changes everything: creators who build tools, products, and infrastructure.
Not just content about the thing. The thing itself.
A fitness creator who builds a custom AI coaching app for their audience instead of just filming workouts. A real estate agent who deploys an AI assistant that handles lead qualification, scheduling, and follow-up instead of paying $3,000 a month for a virtual assistant team. A consultant who ships an entire diagnostic platform instead of just selling hours. A photographer who builds an AI that handles client communication and booking while they're out shooting. A pastor who builds an app that helps their congregation study scripture in a way that actually sticks.
When you can build at this speed, the math of being a creator completely changes. You're not just a voice. You're an operator. You're not competing for attention. You're building assets that compound while you sleep.
From creator to builder-creator. From audience to infrastructure. From content to systems. From mustard seed to tree.
The barrier to entry just fell to nearly zero.
You Don't Need Permission
I think the biggest lie people tell themselves right now is “I'm not technical enough.”
The definition of “technical” changed. You don't need a computer science degree. You don't need to have been coding since you were twelve. You need to be able to think clearly about problems, plan a solution, and use the tools that exist to build it.
Can you describe what you want to build? Can you break a big idea into smaller pieces? Can you look at something that isn't working and figure out why? Then you're technical enough. The AI handles the syntax. You handle the thinking.
That doesn't mean it's effortless. The craft still matters. Understanding architecture matters. Knowing security matters. Thinking about the user matters. The people who treat AI like a magic wand that replaces skill end up with generic garbage. The people who treat it like an amplifier for real craft end up building things that genuinely wow them.
But the barrier went from “spend four years learning to code” to “spend a few weeks learning to build with AI tools.” That's a revolution. It already happened. Most people just haven't caught up yet.
You don't need a degree. You don't need a co-founder. You don't need venture capital. You don't need permission from anyone.
You need a problem worth solving, the willingness to learn, and the audacity to believe you might actually be the one to solve it. (Spoiler: you might actually be the one to solve it.)
The Best Problems to Solve
If you're reading this and thinking “okay but what do I build,” here's how I think about it.
The best problems to solve are the ones you've personally felt. The frustration you had. The process that was broken. The thing you wished existed when you needed it most.
I built my voice agent platform because I watched businesses miss phone calls and lose money. I felt the frustration of calling a business during business hours and getting voicemail. I thought: what if an AI answered, actually helped, and the business never missed another opportunity?
I started The Claw Concierge because I set up OpenClaw for myself, loved it, then watched other people struggle with the setup and get their security completely wrong. I felt the gap between what the tool could do and what people were actually experiencing. So I built a bridge.
Every good product starts the same way. Not with market research. Not with a TAM calculation. With a real feeling about a real problem that affects real people. That's the mustard seed. That feeling.
The market research comes later. The business model comes later. The first thing is the spark. And right now, the tools exist to go from spark to shipped product faster than at any point in history.
Why Right Now Matters
There's a window. I believe that deeply.
The tools are mature enough to be powerful but new enough that most people haven't figured them out yet. The creator economy is enormous but the builder-creator economy is just starting. AI models are good enough to amplify real skill but not good enough to replace it, which means the advantage goes to people who actually care about the craft.
That window won't last forever. More people figure this out every day. The tools will get easier and the competition will get stiffer. But right now, the gap between what's possible and what most people are doing is a canyon.
Build something. Today. Not tomorrow. Not after you finish that course. Not after you feel ready. Nobody feels ready. You feel ready after you've built the first thing and realized you could have done it months ago.
Start Playful. Stay Playful.
I want to leave you with this, because it's the thing I care about most and the thing that gets lost in all the business talk and scaling strategies.
Stay playful.
The best things I've built came from curiosity, not pressure. They came from “what if” not “I need to.” They came from the same energy that makes a kid pick up a crayon and draw something wild and immediately show it to everyone they love.
That energy? That's the image of God in you. That delight in making something new. That joy when it works. That giggle when it surprises you. The Big C Creator looked at what He made and said it was good. We get to do the same thing now, every single day, at a speed and scale that would have been science fiction five years ago.
I moved to Montana on faith and a feeling. I started building AI systems with no venture capital, no team, and no plan other than “I think I can help people with this.” My husband Anthony has learned that when I say “just one more thing” I'll emerge from my office in approximately two to four hours, slightly manic, extremely excited, and ready to overcook dinner while ranting about some new architecture pattern. My dogs have learned to sleep through all of it. I hike and ski and pretend to be a gourmet chef and look at mountains that remind me daily that big things start small.
Mustard seed energy. That's the whole philosophy.
The tools are here. The moment is here. The invitation is open. The only question is whether you're going to pick them up and build.
Come build. 🦞