This as-told-to essay relies on a dialog with Priscilla Tina, a 28-year-old product supervisor based mostly in San Francisco. It has been edited for size and readability.
I am a tech product supervisor in San Francisco by day, and a content material creator by evening. I make movies to encourage individuals to rediscover their creativity.
I have been doing artistic side hustles and experiments my complete life, and I am a lover of all issues analog.
Final November, I sat down and built an app with Claude Code that sends postcards with out coping with stamps or supply.
Analog is again in
Lots of people, together with myself, grew up surrounded by know-how. However I additionally had analog products in my life once I was rising up, and I did not have a cellphone.
Reduce to now, I’ve began dwelling on my cellphone.
We’re spending loads of time brainrotting, loads of AI slop. We’re realizing that spending all our time on our telephones is not very significant.
We’re additionally discovering out that you would be able to join so much higher when socializing in particular person, and that there’s worth in going again to the previous joys of life.
I wished to bridge the divide between the digital and the bodily world and assist join individuals.
I have been sending postcards with my associates for years; it is a actually enjoyable option to keep in contact whereas touring. I additionally began to appreciate that I had bought so many postcards. I had an enormous stack, and it was tremendous inconvenient to put in writing them.
Then you must purchase stamps on the publish workplace and stroll to a kind of mailboxes to mail them. I puzzled if there’s a neater approach to do that.
Utilizing Claude to construct an app in 4 hours
Priscilla Tina
I would signed up for ProductCon in San Francisco, and I wished a prototype of an app I may showcase on the occasion. So I got here up with the concept for Postcard Press, an app that lets customers add photos and sort messages, which connects to a service known as Postgrid that handles printing and supply.
The evening earlier than, I constructed the naked bones of the app in 4 hours and obtained it engaged on my cellphone.
After I shared it with different product managers on the convention, they requested me when it was able to go, saying they wished to ship their associates postcards for Christmas. That gave me intel that individuals had been enthusiastic about it.
I examined the waters on social media too, posting a video about it that obtained 20,000 views.
As a result of there was curiosity in it, I made a decision to problem myself to complete the app earlier than the top of the yr. Over the subsequent two months earlier than the top of 2025, I found out learn how to monetize it, combine cost processing, and launch it.
Since I launched it in December, greater than 100 postcards have been despatched by way of Postcard Press, every costing about $2. Postgrid’s companies value $0.82, and Stripe prices $0.30 per card, so I am actually not making a lot revenue per card.
I do know I may transfer to a subscription mannequin if income had been the objective, nevertheless it’s actually not why I constructed this app to start with.
Some tech hiccups alongside the way in which
I’ve an engineering background, however not essentially coding, so I wanted some assist from my techie friends.
Earlier than I launched the app, I shared it with a few of my associates, they usually sat down with their laptops to attempt to hack the web site.
One in all my associates discovered a safety error that allow him ship 10 postcards with out paying me something, and he mentioned, “It’s worthwhile to repair this earlier than you launch it publicly.” The expertise helped me shore up the app’s safety features.
Funds had been additionally a giant hurdle for me, as a result of I did not know learn how to arrange a Stripe payment system or how a lot it will value.
However my associates challenged me. One in all them mentioned, “I feel you possibly can combine Stripe to do funds and bank card funds in half-hour,” and one other guess towards it. So I sat down and obtained it working in half-hour.
Usually, I might’ve wanted a developer to try this, however I simply requested Claude to learn by way of all of Stripe’s API documentation, and it was capable of combine a cost step within the checkout course of.
The primary of many analog apps
Priscilla Tina
Even when it will not be that profitable in the long term, I imagine that what you are taking away from every experiment is all the training. Constructing this app has been a extremely beneficial studying lesson for me and has made some enjoyable money on the aspect.
I’ve been turning my consideration to creating new products. For instance, I constructed a brand new app known as Mini Print, impressed by the Polaroid partitions I’ve seen in associates’ properties and native companies.
I constructed an app that allows you to flip pictures into little digital Polaroids and prepare them right into a customized wall in your cellphone to make use of as cellphone backgrounds.
I constructed it with Claude Code, and it is now reached round 2,000 customers. I’ve liked seeing associates share their partitions with me.
So lots of my favourite analog experiences are simply ready to be reimagined digitally, and I have been having enjoyable incorporating nostalgic interfaces. Nature and crops are subsequent on my record.
