Imagine spotting a problem in your daily life. Maybe it's a particular task you need to do that is frustrating, maybe it's something your friends or family need. Most importantly, you think you know how to solve that problem, but you're not a "technical person" and can't build apps, what can you do?
However, creating products is not easy. Only special people can create products; we call them engineers. Hence, the classical startup story always starts with at least two people in their garage, one being an engineer. Or so the story went until recently.
Tech is for the techies
More than fifteen years in tech taught me that good ideas could come from anywhere. People are full of ideas, some of them are good, some are gold, some others are not so much. And we have a pretty good way to test if an idea is good - the open market. You spot a problem, you solve it in a novel way, you advertise your solutions, and people buy it, or not. Problem with this approach? It's expensive. Building is always the most expensive option, plus you need people with special skills to build stuff.The second biggest problem with this approach? It feels gated because it involves technology. And tech is scary, full of weird, funny words and abbreviations. Tech is for the "eggheads", "hackers" or engineers. The majority of people who consider themselves "non-technical" might never even try to realise their ideas. How many useful, fun and even life-changing solutions do we not have today just because folks think they're not product creators?
Who is a product creator?
Well... anyone who wants! That's right, these days, anyone who has an idea can build and validate it, no huge investment or technical knowledge required. How? With a little help from robots.I am in the middle of a series aimed at testing and reviewing the new wave of AI agents that can code and create functional products for anyone who can describe what they want in plain English. Those AI agents work pretty much as advertised - you tell them what you want to build, "magic happens", and you can play around with your app or a website. Yes, it's that simple; you don't need to be technical or know anything about building software.
Now, if you spot a problem in the market, you can craft a solution literally in minutes and test it with real people to see if it works. Don't believe me? Check this list of products launched with the help of an AI agent called Lovable. The absolute majority of those were created by people who never wrote a line of code in their lives. And yet, some of them look like high-quality products I might consider paying money for.
Those modern AI tools are blurring the lines between "tech" and "non-tech" people. They remove barriers between ideas and their implementations. Anyone can use those tools to become product creators.
How to become a product creator?
Being a product creator is all about a mindset. Like entrepreneurs are constantly seeking ways to build businesses and earn money, so do product creators are always looking for problems they can solve. This whole blog describes the mindset of a product creator, but let's just summarise what it means to act like a product creator.- You spot problems in the real world that could have technological solutions
- You turn those problems into opportunities by applying product filters
- You prototype a solution and validate it
- You gather feedback, iterate and improve
- You win or lose, but always learn
See, it wasn't that difficult to be a product creator before. Now, with AI agents, it's even simpler.
Cannot be that easy, right?
Product creator is not a job title (yet). You can't learn it in college (you don't need to). Product creator is what you do. How to do, when to do and why to create products is totally up to you. Maybe you always dreamt about having your own business. Or perhaps you want to impress friends. You'd like to show your employer you deserve the promotion? You want to change careers and get into tech? You are just bored and want to create something cool? Whatever your motivation, putting on a product creator's hat might be hugely entertaining, insightful and beneficial for your life and career.Where's the catch?
Because there's always one, right? Well, I can give you a couple to consider.AI agents today can create functional prototypes and even MVPs, but you still need experts to scale your product. All the engineers I talked to about AI agents say the same thing - the code quality they produce is low. Supporting and developing the code produced by AI agents might be rather costly and time-consuming, if at all viable. Moreover, AI agents trained to produce a "working" code that could be neither secure, performant, nor scalable.
Another potential challenge to being a solo product creator - it's all on you. While in the classic process, products are created by teams of diverse professionals, all responsible for their own areas. Product managers, designers, engineers, QAs, security and compliance people, they all bring their unique perspectives and sets of skills. Product creation is often a debate, a fight of ideas, where all participants challenge and complement each other. But when you're flying solo, you're also calling all the shots. For some, it could be too much and overwhelming. While for others, it could provide total creative freedom and control.
How to be a product creator right now?
- Get familiar with AI agents and what they can do for you
- Start noting down problems you spot and ideas you have
- Build solutions and validate them quickly with real people (not only your family and friends)
- Find collaborators who are similarly passionate about the problems you're trying to solve
- Keep iterating and finding your "product-market fit"
- Once you have it, throw away the prototype and start over with the proper team
- Have fun!