I’ve built a lot of weird things. Here’s where the ideas come from, and why I never wait to build them.
Where Ideas Come From
People ask me all the time how I come up with ideas. I think they’re expecting some kind of system.
The honest answer is that most of my ideas come from completely random moments. I’ll be lying in bed, or on a walk, or in the shower, and something just clicks! It’s almost never a structured brainstorm. It’s more like my brain is always running in the background, and every once in a while it surfaces something interesting!
The New Yorker cartoon generator is a perfect example. I was in bed reading through my sister’s Christmas list. She had asked for a New Yorker cartoon calendar. And I thought, huh, what if I could generate those? I built it while in bed, on my phone.
The receipt printer project started the same way. Just kind of a “what if” moment that turned into thousands of strangers sending messages directly to a printer in my house, sharing their fears and happiest moments and random snapshots of their day.
For my OpenClaw Tamagotchi, I saw the Xteink, and immediately thought: what if my AI assistant had a body? So I loaded custom sprites and firmware into it, set up a Skill, and now whenever my OpenClaw responds on Telegram, the little screen updates in real time with different states. Idle, thinking, talking, excited. My favorite is the excited sprite.
My newest project: Yesterday I bought a 1998 iMac G3 off of Facebook Marketplace, not knowing what I would do with it. But later that night I got it “running” OpenClaw. It’s ridiculous and I love it so much.
That’s genuinely how most of my ideas start. I see something cool and think “what if?!"
The (Abridged) Collection
Here’s what I’m most proud of having built so far:
Not Drive. A complete and functional copy of Google Drive, Docs, and Sheets, built entirely in Lovable with zero coding experience. Won first place in a hackathon against 499 other entries.
The receipt printer. A Raspberry Pi and thermal printer setup that let anyone in the world send me a message.
The SNL Card Generator. Generate your own Saturday Night Live host and musical guest announcement cards. Took off in ways I absolutely did not expect.
The New Yorker Cartoon Generator. Born from reading my sister’s Christmas list while lying in bed.
MyNotSpace. A pixel-perfect recreation of MySpace, but this time you can vibe code your profile! Won 2nd place and $2,500 in the Contra YouWare Challenge.
Sticky. A digital cork board for organizing your thoughts with beautiful sticky notes. Won first place at the Anything Weekend Challenge.
Plan Maddie’s Month. A website where strangers planned my month-long trip to San Francisco by recommending and voting on what I should do. I thought this one would take off. It had three users, haha.
PDAchat. ChatGPT, but in a retro PDA-style interface. Built this one because I just wanted to see ChatGPT on a tiny screen.
Christmas Photo Booth. An interactive 3D Christmas photo booth.
Gävlebocken Simulator. A fun simulator based on Gävlebocken, which I'm obsessed with.
The San Diego friendship matchmaking service. Helped hundreds of San Diegans make friends!
Nobody asked for the vast majority of these, but I built them anyway.
Why I Don’t Use AI for Ideas
I use AI constantly. For planning, for building, for debugging, for refining ideas once I have them. But I never use AI to come up with ideas in the first place.
Here’s why: if I ask an AI to generate ideas, it’ll give everyone the same ones. The whole point of building is that the idea is yours. It came from your brain, your experiences, your weird shower thoughts, your sister’s Christmas list. That’s what makes it interesting.
AI is incredible at helping you figure out how to build something. But the “what” should come from you. Your ideas are the one thing that’s still entirely, uniquely human in this process.
How I Decide What to Build
I guess this is the part where I’m supposed to share my decision-making framework.
Unfortunately, I don’t have one.
When I have an idea, I build it. I don’t wait. If I’m excited, and the barrier to building is as low as it is now, why would I wait?
Some people sit on ideas. I understand that approach, but it isn’t mine.
At this point, my process is: have idea, open whatever tool makes sense, and start building. But the gap between idea and execution is as small as I can possibly make it.
The reason is simple. Excitement is fuel to me! If I wait, the excitement fades. And I’ve learned that the projects I’m most excited about tend to be the ones that turn out the best, because I’m having fun and that energy shows up in the work.
Why I Build Everything (Even the “Bad” Ideas)
People sometimes chuckle a bit at my ideas. Before I build them, of course. I’m not sure if they think I can’t build them, or if they think they aren’t good ideas. But the ideas always make sense in my brain. And I'll be honest, people usually change their tune after they see the finished product.
Here’s the thing about ideas: you genuinely cannot predict which ones will resonate. I thought Plan Maddie’s Month was going to take off. It did not. Three users. Oops. But occasionally I have an idea and just know it will connect, like the OpenClaw Tamagotchi or the receipt printer. And I was right about those!
But I was also right about Not Drive, which I built mostly because I thought it would be funny to clone Google Drive. First place in a hackathon. And the SNL card generator, which I figured would get a few laughs, ended up reaching way more people than I ever expected.
The lesson I keep learning over and over is that the only way to find out what works is to ship it. Every “bad” idea I’ve built has taught me something. Every “silly” project has connected me with someone. And honestly, the weird ones are almost always more fun to build than the serious ones would have been.
Your creative brain doesn’t care if a project is “useful” or not. It’s all the same muscle. Every project makes the next one better.
The Ideas Never Stop
Before I started vibe coding, I always had ideas. Like little things I wished existed, or silly concepts I thought would be funny, or random “what if” thoughts. But I had no way to build any of them, so they just bounced around in my head and eventually faded.
Now that I can build, things have changed: the ideas come faster. It’s like once your brain realizes that ideas can actually become real things, it starts generating them constantly!
The more I build, the more ideas I have. And I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Creating unlocks more creativity, and shipping one thing makes you think of three more things!
If you have ideas sitting around, build one. The barrier has never been lower, and you honestly have no idea what might take off.
One More Thing
I’m building something new. Something useful this time (I know, plot twist, haha). I’m really excited about it!
If you want to learn more, DM me here or email me at maddie@bizzby.ai.