My Indie Hacking Journey - From Burnt-Out Accountant to AI Tool Explorer

So I'm starting this weekly journal to document my transition from corporate drone to... well, hopefully something more exciting. Full transparency: I'm a complete nobody who spent years as an accountant before realizing spreadsheets were slowly killing my soul.

The breaking point came when I caught myself staring at the ceiling during yet another budget meeting, thinking "there has to be more than this." That's when I decided to build my own thing.

The AI Tool Rabbit Hole

I started experimenting with AI tools about 6 months ago, and honestly? They're kind of magical. Instead of just being impressed, I began noticing all the little frustrations in my daily workflow that these tools could potentially solve. My strategy is simple: build solutions for my own pain points first, then see if others have the same problems.

This Week's Tool Stack (What Actually Works):

V0 for Landing Pages Built my first product landing page (VoiceTypePro) with V0, and I was shocked it actually worked. The whole thing took maybe 3 hours instead of the days I expected. Someone on r/webdev mentioned Lovable as another option, so that's next on my list to try.

ChatGPT for Daily Writing/Brainstorming The Pro plan is definitely smarter, but honestly the free version handles most of my random "what if" questions just fine. I use it mainly for working through ideas and getting unstuck when I'm overthinking something.

Claude Code for Development This has been a game-changer. The AI actually understands context and can debug my messy code without judging me (probably). My only fear is hitting their usage limits. I've been bumping against them more often as I get deeper into building. Really hoping ChatGPT releases something similar so I have backup options.

What I'm Learning:

The biggest surprise so far is how much faster you can move when you stop trying to be perfect. My code is held together with digital duct tape, but it works, and real people are actually using it.

Next Week: Planning to dive into user feedback from my first 50 users. Spoiler alert: they want features I never thought of.

Anyone else making this transition from corporate life? What tools are you finding actually worth the hype?

TL;DR: Ex-accountant building AI tools to solve my own problems. V0 for landing pages, ChatGPT for ideas, Claude Code for actually building stuff. Still figuring it out but having way more fun than budget meetings.