TL;DR
-
What this is: This is a hands-on guide where I share my 10-month path from “just a UX/UI designer with an idea” to “founder building a real product from scratch,” with AI embedded at every step.
-
Who it’s for: Designers who dream of becoming founders, and anyone curious about using AI as a practical co-pilot for building digital products.
-
What you’ll learn: How to define your Big Idea, assess potential, talk to users, set up an AI-powered workflow, and create a strong product design. All based on real hands-on experience.
-
My ambitious goal: Give you a realistic playbook for turning a dream into something tangible and move beyond the pretty-but-empty Behance/Dribbble case study format we’ve all stopped trusting.
-
Reading time: ~60 minutes.
Ten months of late nights and weekends. Dozens of AI experiments. 70+ final screens (and plenty more variations). And, most importantly, a ton of valuable lessons learned.
It started last summer with a simple idea that popped into my head right before sleep. Not long after, I stumbled on a really well-timed entrepreneurship course. Back then, I had no clue how much the decision to work on a personal product would reshape my career.
I’m Volodymyr Merlenko, a product designer with four years in design and the last two deep in AI. I write articles about it, run a small LinkedIn blog, and occasionally give talks and mentoring sessions. In my free time this past year, I’ve also been building a product to help tech folks finally master the skills they keep putting off “for later,” and do it in a way that’s easy and personalized.
The old way most teams work? Endless calls you didn’t need to attend, messy comms, slow-motion bureaucracy, and hours lost on low-impact tasks.
The new way? A single designer, supercharged by AI, doing the work that used to take a small team.
This article is Part 1 of that journey: how I’m building a real product from zero and how AI upgrades every step.
So grab a coffee, block out an hour in your calendar, and let’s go. ☕️