Dear Techies,

I want to tell you about something I've been sitting on for a while.

I built the Tech Savvy Starts Here website. Not hired someone to build it. Not used a template someone else set up. Built it from scratch. Designed it, wrote it, deployed it, connected the domain. The whole thing.

Now, I want to be upfront about what makes this slightly unusual.

I'm an ML engineer. I work with models, data pipelines, training runs. I'm technical. But web design and frontend development are a completely different discipline with their own conventions, their own tools, their own way of thinking. Going in, I assumed my technical background would make this easy.

It didn't.

That gap between being technical in one area and being able to do everything tech-related is exactly what this newsletter is about today.

Here's the honest breakdown of how AI showed up in this process and where it helped most.

1. AI is a thinking partner before it's a building tool

The most underrated use of AI in any build isn't generating output. It's thinking out loud.

Before I wrote a single word of copy or chose a single layout, I used AI to pressure-test my thinking. I described what I was trying to build, who it was for, what I wanted someone to feel when they landed on the page, what action I wanted them to take, and then I asked it to push back.

"What am I missing? What would someone who lands here not understand? What's ambiguous?"

That process surfaced things I hadn't considered. Assumptions I was making about what visitors already knew. Gaps in how pages connected to each other. It was like having a very patient reviewer who was available at 11pm and never got tired of the question.

The takeaway: Before you ask AI to build anything, ask it to interrogate your plan. You'll save yourself a lot of rebuilding later.

2. AI closes skill gaps, but it needs to know what the gap is

This is where a lot of people go wrong.

They approach AI like a search engine. They type in a vague request and hope it figures out what they need. Sometimes that works. Often it doesn't.

The better approach is to be specific about your constraint.

Instead of:

Help me write a homepage

Try:

I'm building a homepage for a newsletter and YouTube channel focused on AI for non-developers. My audience ranges from total beginners to people who are technical in other fields but not in web design. I want the headline to communicate value immediately, the sub-headline to clarify who it's for, and the CTA to feel low-friction. Here's my first draft: [draft]. What's working and what isn't?

That second prompt gives AI context about the gap you're trying to close. It's not just asking for output. It's asking for a collaborator who understands the specific problem.

The takeaway: Name your constraint explicitly. Saying "I don't have a design background" or "I'm not a copywriter" tells AI what kind of help to give you.

3. The decisions AI can't make, and why that's actually a good thing

There's a version of this story where AI just does it all and you don't have to think.

That's not what happened. And honestly, I'm glad.

There were decisions AI couldn't make for me. What does this brand actually stand for? What tone feels right? What do I want someone to feel five minutes after leaving the site? What am I willing to say publicly and what am I not?

Those questions required me to get clear on things I'd been unclear about. Going through that process, even when it was uncomfortable, made the end result better than it would have been if I'd just handed everything off.

Building with AI, done right, forces clarity. Not just about what you're building but about why.

The takeaway: Don't try to skip the hard questions. Use AI to help you answer them, not avoid them.

4. Domain knowledge still matters, maybe more than ever

Here's the counter-intuitive one.

You might assume that AI reduces the importance of knowing your subject. In some ways it does. But when you're building something for your brand, your domain knowledge becomes the most important input in the room. What you actually know, what you've actually done, what your genuine perspective is.

AI can generate generic copy. It cannot generate your specific insight. It cannot tell your actual story. It cannot make the observation that only someone who's spent years in your field would make.

The websites and newsletters that stand out aren't the ones where AI did the most work. They're the ones where a real person's knowledge and perspective was the foundation, and AI was the tool that helped them express and structure it faster.

The takeaway: Your expertise is the asset. AI is the leverage.

If any of the above resonated, and you've been wanting to build something for your brand but haven't pulled the trigger, I want to invite you to something.

I'm running a live workshop where I walk you through the exact process I used to build the Tech Savvy Starts Here website. Not a recorded course. A live session with real time Q&A, real decisions, and a real outcome.

Here's what we'll cover:

📅 April 26, 2026 🕐 2PM EST | 7 PM WAT 📍 Live via Zoom 🔗 https://techsavvystartshere.com/workshops

Spots are intentionally limited. I want this to be a real conversation, not a broadcast.

I put out a video this week that goes alongside all of this. It's a live walkthrough of the Tech Savvy Starts Here website where I show you what I built, talk through the decisions behind it, and get into the honest version of what it was like to build something outside my area of expertise.

If you prefer to watch rather than read, it covers a lot of the same ground.

Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/DvKaOcfPZDo

That's it for this week.

If you have a brand, a business, a side project, or even just an idea you've been sitting on, a website is one of the best things you can do for it. The tools available right now make it genuinely achievable without an agency, without a developer, and without a frontend background.

Hope to see you at the workshop.

Stay Savvy,

Ijeoma | Tech Savvy Starts Here

P.S. Did you know I wrote a book? Tech Savvy Starts Here is available on Amazon—a practical, engaging guide for families and educators helping kids build confidence with technology. Check it out here.

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