2am, Frozen at My Desk

At 2am, Li Jie (a Xiaohongshu consultant) messaged me: "Add a membership tier feature. Need it by 8am tomorrow." I opened Cursor, found the website I'd built with AI 3 months ago, changed 3 lines, got 20 errors. That's when it hit me: AI helped me climb over the "can't code" mountain—but dropped me on the other side.

Tools I Used, Traps My Friends Hit

"AI coding" tools I've used: Cursor (AI writes code right inside your editor), v0 and Bolt (type in Chinese, get a webpage), Replit Agent (one sentence builds a whole app). At least 5 non-coder friends around me shipped products with these. But Ah Qiang (runs a podcast) used Bolt to build a membership paywall in one weekend last year, saving ¥20,000 in contractor fees. Last month he wanted a "bulk coupon" feature—AI went through 5 versions, all errored out. He ended up paying a real programmer ¥1,500, done in 2 hours. Then there's Yanzi (runs a knowledge community): Cursor handles copy edits and button colors fine, but hit "user login" or "database fields" and she's stuck asking AI line by line "what did you just change?" That foreign article saying "AI coding will erode your programming skills"—I totally agree. It's like using cruise control while learning to drive: feels great, until you hit a mountain road and realize how much of the basics you've lost.

Cost to Replicate + First Step

Money: Cursor Pro ~¥140/month, v0 free tier is enough, Bolt has limited free credits per month. Time: Bolt/v0 builds a usable tool in ~2-4 hours; Cursor edits to an existing project take 1-2 hours/day. Technical bar: No coding needed—but you must "describe what you want clearly in Chinese." Saying "make a login page" isn't enough. Say "white background, email + password, forgot-password button bottom-right." First step: Open bolt.new (it's a web tool, nothing to download), type your product idea in Chinese, hit enter. But if what you're building needs long-term maintenance or real users, I'd spend ¥2,000 to get a programmer to lay the "foundation"—then you handle the edits yourself. Way more stable than pure AI.

Advice by Stage

If you're just starting (no product yet): I'd use AI tools to ship an MVP in 2 weeks and show potential customers—but save every generated code file, and have someone technical glance over it. If you have 1-2 clients: I'd find a "tech-savvy friend" as an hourly-paid consultant. Have them look before any big change—10x cheaper than firefighting after. If you're scaling (3+ people on the team OR ¥50k+/month): I'd strongly recommend hiring a part-time programmer. Let AI be their assistant, not your "lead dev." I've seen too many small teams collapse because "the founder is the only one who knows the product"—the person burns out, the company burns out. One last honest thing: AI coding accelerates you—it doesn't insure you. No rush to start, but once you do, block 1 hour every week to "understand what AI just did."