Let's Talk
From Idea to Code with AI: I Built a Postcard App by Describing It

From Idea to Code with AI: I Built a Postcard App by Describing It

A working method for turning a half-formed idea into shipped software — notebook scribbles, Figma, then Claude. With the real project, the real mistakes, and the parts AI got wrong.

ShamsudheenShamsudheen - Design Engineer
· September 7, 2026 · Reading time: 1 min

How it started

I've always loved letters. The ones I've sent, the ones I've saved, the ones I wrote to no one but myself. Years later I can still open one and feel the exact moment it came from.

Lately I've been typing postcards on a typewriter. There's something beautiful about writing one word at a time, slow and honest.

j

I make my own postcards too — handdrawn, watercolour, doodled — and send them to people. The waiting, and then their happiness when it lands: that's the whole thing.

ssss


I know a screen can't give you that. No app will ever feel like ink on paper, and I'm not pretending it does.

But I love letters too much not to try something.

So I built a small, simple thing: a digital postcard maker. Write a postcard to someone you love, to yourself, or just to hold onto a memory. Then save it or send the link.

This post isn't really about the postcards, though. It's about the gap I had to cross to build it.