He taught himself Cursor and built a $300K AI app in seven months

In August of last year, Pat Walls — founder of Starter Story — discovered Cursor, an AI-powered code editor. Within five minutes of using it, he had a realization that changed his trajectory: "I can with Cursor build enterprise level software, software that required teams of hundreds of people before, now completely by myself, no help whatsoever." By day one, he had a working prototype. By January, that prototype had turned into a product generating $300,000 in annual recurring revenue. He did it with no formal coding background and no co-founders.

The insight that unlocked everything

Walls had been running Starter Story — a publication that interviews founders about their businesses — for years. The site had accumulated thousands of interviews, each packed with specific details about how real companies got their first customers, chose their pricing, and navigated early growth. But the content was scattered across individual pages. There was no way for a reader to ask, "What did SaaS founders charging over $50 per month do to get their first 10 customers?" and get a synthesized answer.