● LIVELive since: May 2026Made by: 1 personBackground: design + marketingCS degree: 0Guides published: 147Times I got cooked: ∞Times I gave up: 0● LIVELive since: May 2026Made by: 1 personBackground: design + marketingCS degree: 0Guides published: 147Times I got cooked: ∞Times I gave up: 0
CBW
// About

I had Claude for a year.
But I never used it built anything.

This site is for the person I was a year ago. I had every AI tool and zero idea how to actually build with them. Now I want to make sure no one else has to learn the hard way.

1+ yrUsing AI tools
0Computer science degrees
147Guides published
1Person running this
// The storypart 1
5 min read

I had Claude for a year.
I never built anything.

My background is in design and marketing. I am not a coder. I never took a computer science class. The closest I got to “tech” was knowing Photoshop and Figma a bit too well.

So when AI got big, I did what most people did. I signed up for ChatGPT. Then Claude. I asked them questions. I made some funny pictures. I had it write a few emails for me. It was cool.

But after a year I had to face a hard truth: I had not actually built anything. I had only been chatting. AI was supposed to change everything for everyone, but for me it was just a fancy search engine.

“I had every AI tool. But I was still stuck between ‘I know AI is powerful’ and ‘I have no idea how to use it’.”

— Me, ~8 months ago

So I tried to learn. I read every newsletter. I bookmarked 87 GitHub projects. I watched 30+ tutorials. None of them helped.

Every guide assumed I knew what a terminal was. What npm meant. What $at the start of a line meant. They were written by senior developers for senior developers. The “beginner friendly” ones lost me by step 2.

I almost gave up. Many times. But every few weeks I would see another insanely cool AI project on Twitter and feel that same itch: I want to make this. Why is it so hard?

// The turning pointpart 2
when it clicked
Finally, something worked

Then I built Voice Clone.
And everything changed.

About 3 months ago I sat down with Claude Code and a coffee, and promised myself I would not get up until something ran. The project I picked was small — a voice-cloning script I had seen hyped on Twitter. The repo had a README. The README assumed a lot. I followed it anyway.

I broke things. A lot. But every time I broke something, Claude Code told me why and what to try next. Cooked!  Baked!   Worked! became my internal monologue for the afternoon. The first two showed up a lot. The third one took 14 minutes to arrive.

The moment everything clicked

On a Sunday afternoon, my laptop started reading my unread emails out loud — in my own voice. It was 80% creepy and 100% the most fun I'd had on a computer in years. I had built something. For the first time in a year.

After that, I could not stop. I built more things. A self-hosted LiteLLM proxy so I could route between Claude, GPT, and local models for ~$20/month. A web terminal so I could SSH from any device. A daily-build automation. A scraper for GitHub Trending. Each one taught me something. Each one broke in new and creative ways.

Here is the thing: I am still not a “real” developer. I still google “how to use git.” I still copy commands without fully understanding them. I still get cooked at least once a day. But I am building. That is the difference.

// Why CBW existspart 3
the mission
The site I needed

I want you to skip the
6 months I wasted.

Here is the problem with the current AI-guide internet: it is written by people who already know how to code. They have forgotten what it feels like to not know what a terminal is. I have not forgotten. It was 6 months ago.

CBW is the site I needed a year ago. One project a day. Steps that actually work. Errors named out loud before they hit you. Built by someone who got cooked a lot before he got worked.

// The bigger storypart 4
what changed in my life
// the unexpected part

Building with AI is more fun
than my PS5.

// quit

PS5

Three months untouched. The dust on it is starting to feel rude.

// quit

Netflix

Cancelled in March. I have not noticed it gone. That is probably the answer right there.

// quit

YouTube

Still there for documentation videos. Recommended tab gone. The evenings are quieter and richer for it.

I did not plan to quit those. They just started feeling slow. Every evening on the PS5 was an evening I did not build something. Every Netflix episode was a hour I did not learn a tool that compounds.

The thrill that replaced them is hard to describe to someone who has not felt it yet. It is tracking a project that hit 4K stars yesterday and is at 47K today, knowing you can run it before lunch. It is the second-hour high of debugging your own thing and watching it flicker awake. It is solving a problem in your actual life — a terrible PDF, a slow inbox, a thing your accountant keeps asking for — with code you wrote, that runs on your laptop.

The first month, the wins were tiny. A 20-line script. A bot that sent me the weather. The second month, the wins got bigger than I expected. A full LiteLLM proxy. A web terminal. Things I would have hired someone to build a year ago, now built in an afternoon. That confidence (“I can do this”) is the thing AI actually gives you, and it is not the thing the news talks about.

The other thing nobody tells you: this stuff is addictive in a good way. The dopamine of shipping something small every day is the same dopamine the games used to give me, except at the end of the day I have a thing instead of a leaderboard. And — most importantly — I am not falling behind. AI moves fast. The only way not to feel buried by it is to build with it. CBW is the schedule that keeps me there. One guide a day. Five minutes to read. Twenty minutes to ship.

That feeling — being able to keep up with how fast AI is moving — is what I want to share. CBW exists so you can have it too.

// What this site promises6 rules
no exceptions
Why CBW exists

I want you to skip the
6 months I wasted.

Here is the deal between you and me. Six promises. No exceptions. If I ever break one, call me out and I will fix the guide.

01
I test every guide myself— on Mac, Windows, and Linux. If something breaks, I fix it before publishing. No “it worked on my machine” excuses.
02
Easy English only— short sentences, common words. No “leverage” or “utilize.” If your English is a second language, this site should still work.
03
Errors are part of the guide — I show the most common errors before they happen. With fixes. You will not be alone when something breaks.
04
Honest difficulty ratings— easy / medium / spicy. Plus a “first time it worked” rate (real %). No more “beginner friendly!” lies.
05
Re-tested every week — AI moves fast. A guide that worked last month might break next week. I check each guide weekly. Like checking milk dates.
06
One person makes this — me. No team. No VC money. No agenda. If a guide is bad, blame me. If you have feedback, I will see it.
// CBW vs the resthonest comparison
the difference
honest comparison

Most AI guides are made for experts.
Not for you.

most ai guide sites
cbw
Written for senior devs. Uses hard words.
Easy English first. Terminal, npm, GitHub explained from zero.
Mac-only. Windows users get stuck.
Every guide tested on Mac · Windows · Linux.
“It worked when I wrote it.” — 8 months ago
Re-tested every week. Like checking milk dates.
Error happens. Guide ends. You are alone.
Errors named before they hit you. With fixes.
“Beginner friendly!” — but really hard
Honest tags: easy · medium · spicy. Plus a real success rate (%).
Team of writers chasing pageviews
One person. No team. No VC. No agenda.
// What I use6 tools
no affiliate links here
My stack

The tools that changed
everything for me.

If you are starting out, here is what I actually use every day. Real recommendations. Not paid placements.

The brain

Claude

The AI I talk to all day. Better at long thinking than the other one.

daily
The hands

Claude Code

Where Claude actually runs code. The tool that made me a builder.

daily
The editor

Cursor

Like VS Code but built for AI. Pairs well with Claude Code.

often
The router

LiteLLM

My own server that routes between AI models. Saves money. Saves my sanity.

often
The home

Hostinger VPS

$8/month Linux server. Hosts everything. Best deal on the internet.

always
The site

Next.js + nginx

What this site runs on. Static. Fast. Free until you get popular.

always
// About Michaelquick intro
the human
designer · marketer · builder

Hi. I'm Michael.

Designer and marketer for ~10 years. Builder for ~3 months. Currently running CBW solo from a small VPS, with too much coffee and a healthy fear of rm -rf.

If you tried a guide and it broke, email me. If you have an idea for a guide that does not exist yet, also email me. I read everything. hello@cookedbakedworked.com

[photo placeholder — Michael will add a real one soon]

// Honest stuff3 truths
no marketing speak
$ money

How CBW makes money (or will, eventually)

Right now: $0. The site is brand new. Probably stays free.

Soon: I will recommend tools I actually use. If you sign up through my link, I get a small kickback. It costs you the same. I will never recommend something I would not pay for myself.

Later: Maybe a paid newsletter. Maybe a course. Money will never change which guides I publish.

⊘ limits

What this site is NOT

This is not a place to learn computer science. For that, go to freeCodeCamp or Boot.dev.

This is not a place for the latest AI research. For that, go to Latent Space or MarkTechPost.

This is a place to build things with AI, even if you are not a developer. Take a popular GitHub project. Run it. Make something. That is it.

⚠ truth

Things will still break

I test every guide. But computers are weird. Your computer is not my computer. Sometimes things break.

That is okay. The errors are part of learning. When you get stuck, send me an email. I will help if I can. If a lot of people hit the same problem, I update the guide.

We are in this together. I am still figuring it out too.

// your turn

Start with your first build.

The same one that broke me out of a year of just chatting with AI. 14 minutes. Tested on Mac, Windows, and Linux. 76% worked first time.

Start with your first build →Get the daily build →