I Built a Full SaaS Platform in 3 Months Without Knowing How to Code (Here's My Story)

#webdev #programming #beginners #ai

Let me start with something uncomfortable: I don't know how to code from scratch.

I'm not one of those people who learned programming at 12, built websites for fun, or has a computer science degree.

I'm just someone who's been frustrated by the same problem over and over: every time I want to try a new tool or start a project, I waste hours scrolling through endless best tools lists, reading random blog posts, and still ending up confused.

Three months ago, I had an idea: what if there was a platform that actually helps you decide which digital tools to use, based on real reviews and clear comparisons?

*Not just another messy directory, but something that feels alive and useful.
*

I called it *Jozaz *— a decision engine for digital tools.
But here's the problem: I had no idea how to build it.

The moment everything changed discovering AI coding tools

I knew what I wanted Jozaz to do. I even sketched the pages on paper: a homepage with categories, product pages with reviews, a ranking system that shows trending tools, user profiles, subscriptions… all of it.

But when I opened a blank code editor, I froze.

Then I discovered Cursor and Windsurf AI coding tools that help non-programmers build software. I typed: "Create a Next.js app with a homepage showing products." It worked. Not perfectly, but enough to start.

Failures and surprises

After a few days, I discovered the disasters.

My entire approach was fundamentally wrong. When I said "build the homepage" I wasn't following best practices for a project of this scale.

That's when the hardest part of the journey began: understanding how to actually build a complex platform.

I started reading and learning, even if just at a basic level. Eventually, I realized something crucial: *this isn't simple at all, even with AI tools. *

The big problem is that AI will indeed build what you ask for. But I discovered it's not just about building it's about how you structure and organize code in a hierarchical, balanced way so everything works together.

Month 1: Pure chaos. I didn't understand databases or authentication. I asked Cursor endless questions like How do I let users sign in Sometimes it worked instantly. Sometimes I debugged for hours.

By month's end: working sign-in, database, basic product pages.

Month 2: I built the core features — ranking algorithms, dynamic badges, category filters, real-time notifications, and subscriptions via Polar.sh.

I explained what I wanted in plain language; the AI generated code. I tested, broke it, fixed it, repeated.

Month 3: Polish turned into panic. Bugs, performance issues, design problems everywhere. The real issue? Me thinking "it's not ready yet."

And believe me, the process of discovering errors, protection, and fixes was 100 times more difficult than building the project.

For example, when I run npm run lint. This was the real shock: over 544 problems, ranging from warnings to major errors. But now i fixed them almost all.