It’s never too late to build

Unprompted alpha from former VC-backed founders on how AI is transforming the way we work, from early-stage startups to service businesses.

I was scrolling through Reddit this week when I found something that stopped me cold.

Not the usual posts from 22-year-old coding prodigies, but stories from people who started building later in life. People with real jobs, families, and zero interest in becoming the next tech unicorn.

They were just solving problems they cared about. And they were doing it really well.

This week, we’re going to share their stories. 

Fred's career reads like a traditional HR recruiter’s nightmare: Russian-English-French interpreter, music festival promoter, live venue operator, circus owner (yes, really), rock band producer, and startup marketer. At 48, with absolutely no computer science background, he decided to learn Python—not to change careers, but to automate boring tasks and solve real problems he had.

A year later, he launched AI Jingle Maker. It's a tool that lets anyone create professional-sounding radio jingles and podcast intros by combining voiceovers, background music, and effects like digital building blocks. No audio editing skills required.

Fred builds entirely with ChatGPT, Claude, and GitHub Copilot, describing what he wants and piecing their suggestions together. "It's about understanding the system and shaping it," he says.

Now he has hundreds of users, is generating monthly revenue, and just shipped a second product.

Takeaway: Starting at 48 isn't a disadvantage—it's just a different starting point. 

This builder wanted to capture his dad's and father-in-law's life stories before it was too late. So he created something beautiful: an AI interviewer named Walt who has natural conversations with people, then turns those chats into written biographies.

"As easy as a phone call with grandma," he says. He built it for his family, refined it, then shared it with friends who wanted the same thing. Now it's in alpha testing and starting to spread.

Takeaway: Building something deeply personal often creates something universally valuable.

Ovalman has been tinkering with computers since the 1980s but never worked in tech professionally. He taught himself Java and Android development over the years, releasing apps on the Play Store as a hobby.

Now he's using AI to build at a completely different pace. His site, 3dtools.co.uk, lets users create and manipulate 3D models with AI assistance. He built it in three months.

Last week, he made a custom clock from scratch—AI helped prep the image, he designed the frame using his own tools, then printed and assembled it with parts from Amazon.

"My best ideas come from life experience," he says. "I'm solving my own real-world problems."

Takeaway: Years of hands-on experience turn out to be excellent preparation for working with AI tools.

The media is oversaturated with success stories of 18 year olds creating billion dollar businesses, college dropouts coding the next big thing, and Big Tech rolling out super-powered AI software that will “take our jobs.” But these are just cherry-picked anecdotes, and these stories from our internet friends Fred, Internal-Combustion1, and Ovalman remind us of some really important lessons.

It’s never too late to learn, build, or pursue a passion— especially today when AI tools make building so accessible. If you’re curious about something, you can use that to fuel an exploration that can turn into something tangible. And most importantly, when you have a real problem to solve—something you encounter regularly in your work or life—you’re already halfway to building something useful. The best products start as problems you face every day.

These are just three stories from real people, with real problems, and real outcomes. They saw what was possible with today’s tech—and followed that curiosity to make something of their own.

So, what’s your story?