How to Build MVPs with AI: A Beginner's Step-by-Step Playbook

The episode walks through a concrete, three-stage process for building a minimum viable product using AI tools, even if you have zero coding experience. The host emphasizes that the key is not just knowing which tools to use, but understanding how to sequence them and how to handle the inevitable errors that arise.

Start with Research: Perplexity as Your Teacher

For a complete beginner, the recommended starting point is Perplexity, not a coding tool. The reason is straightforward: Perplexity has access to the most up-to-date documentation and can provide detailed, step-by-step instructions for any tool or library you need. The host describes his own process: "I just asked Perplexity because it has the most up-to-day information. So it has all the documentation, anything that you want to, any tool, any library. Just tell it you're completely new and absolutely don't know how to do anything. And it'll give you really detailed step-by-step."

The deep research feature pulls up a long document you can reference and follow along with. This replaces the traditional approach of hunting through forums, documentation pages, and tutorials yourself. Instead, you ask Perplexity what to do first, second, and third, and it gives you a structured plan.

Build the MVP Shell with Bolt