How to build an app in 2025.

Example: Building a simple DB explorer ## 1. The “Why” is more important than the “What” ## 2. AI is your co-developer in 2025 ## 3. Add intelligence only where it matters ## 4. Ship early. Ship simple. Ship real. ## 5. One unfair advantage beats 100 features ## Final thought It’s 2025. AI is everywhere. But building a useful app still comes down to one thing: Solve your own problem first. Let’s say you want to build a simple DB explorer (like hubble.davidlabs.ca). What do you actually want from the app? That's it. That’s the entire spec. This is how you build apps in 2025: Not “ship an MVP.” Not “validate an idea.” Solve your own pain so deeply that other developers say: “Oh thank god, I needed this too.” Before writing a single line of code, ask yourself: Why does this app deserve to exist? For me: MongoDB is great, but exploring it was painful. Aggregation pipelines, Compass tabs, Atlas views… too many steps. “I want clarity without syntax.” Once the why is clear, the what becomes obvious. In 2025, building apps looks like this: AI isn’t replacing developers. AI is accelerating developers. Most apps don’t need “full AI.” They need tiny intelligent features that remove friction: Hubble works because intelligence is placed exactly where the frustration was: querying MongoDB. Your v1 doesn’t need: Your v1 needs one thing: Everything else is optional. You don’t need a huge roadmap. You need one thing that makes people go: “Hold up… this actually saves time.” For Hubble, that one thing was: Ask MongoDB questions in English → see the generated pipeline. That’s the unfair advantage. Your app needs one too. The way to build apps in 2025 isn’t about frameworks, stacks, or patterns. If you want to build something meaningful this year: Start with something that annoys you. Solve it deeply. Ship it. Everything else will follow. Templates let you quickly answer FAQs or store snippets for re-use. Are you sure you want to hide this comment? It will become hidden in your post, but will still be visible via the comment's permalink. Hide child comments as well For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse - Explore MongoDB data - No query syntax - No learning aggregation pipelines - Just ask questions in natural language - Start with the most annoying part of your workflow - Remove the friction - Let AI fill the gaps - Ask GPT to scaffold your backend - Use AI to design your UI - Let AI generate validation & types - Let AI write Dockerfiles - Let AI write text, onboarding, docs - Let AI generate fake data - Let AI refactor messy code - Let AI help debug faster - Natural language input - Smart suggestions - Autocomplete - Anomaly warnings - Auto-configuration - AI-assisted logs - One-click insights - fancy design - 20 features - full documentation - reducing cognitive load - using AI to accelerate development - solving a problem you feel deeply - creating clarity - shipping early - iterating in public