I Built My First App, Here's What I Learned That You Should Know

 

Is AI Stealing Our Creativity? I Built an App and Here's What I Learned

How a 4 a.m. trip through the Play Store turned into Chromatik, my first real app, and completely changed the way I think about building software.

I found Base44 at about four in the morning.

This was during one of my semi-annual strolls thru the Play Store in order to download the new and trending apps in an attempt to stay relevant to my teenagers. It usually doesn't have the intended effect but sometimes I do find really fun things. That morning, I stumbled across something particularly interesting:

An app that makes apps.

I am a sucker for good irony, so naturally, I had to see what it could do.

I logged in and threw a fairly ridiculous idea at it: build me a task-management app that's also a town-building game.

And it did.

It was crude. There were a lot of emojis which sounds cuter than it was. It certainly wasn't ready to publish. But there on my screen was essentially what I had described. I hadn't written any code. I had just explained an idea.

That stuck with me.

A few days later, I was working on pixel-art in Aseprite, while also drawing in Procreate. Aseprite was on my laptop and Procreate on the iPad, and I was trying to keep my color palette consistent between between the two, writing down hex codes manually and doing a lot of paint this color, see if it works, paint another. Rinse, Repeat. 

And I remember thinking:

Surely there is an easier way to do this in the 21st century.

Then I remembered the app that builds apps, Base 44.

I'm sure inside some program that already exists, there was a set of tools that could have done what I wanted, but instead of searching for another program and learning yet another system inside yet another piece of software, what if I could just make the tool I wanted?

That's how Chromatik was born.

What I Wanted Chromatik to Be

I had a fairly clear vision from the beginning.

Color Selection Wheel

I didn't want to replace Procreate, Adobe, Canva, Aseprite or the other programs artists already use.

I wanted something that could sit beside them.

Much like a traditional artist keeps the palette separate from the canvas, the idea behind Chromatik was to design a workspace that focuses on color selection and allows the artist to focus their attention on what counts, making art. 

And perhaps most importantly, I wanted it to be immediately easy to use and understand. Just like that blank artists palette. 

That's something I've carried throughout the design. Chromatik uses bright colors, large quick links, a traveling toolbar on mobile and a very focused workspace. You should always know where you are, what you are doing, and where you need to go next.

Quicklinks and Navigation toolbar

There are no menus buried in submenus with confusing buttons. Quicklinks on the dashboard gives you quick access to every page and the toolbar can take you from one page to another quickly. 

Ease of use was essentially the point. 

 And what really ended up surprising me was how quickly Base44 turned that vision into something real.

The Moment I Realized This Was Actually Something

My "holy crap" moment happened almost immediately.

One thing Base44 does incredibly well is take even a somewhat vague idea and produce a surprisingly functional skeleton.

My first real prompt for Chromatik gave me color-picking wheels, an AI palette generator and the first version of the palette workspace.

The original Chromatik design.

It wasn't finished, not even close because my prompt was very vague, 

But the bones were there.

And suddenly I wasn't looking at just an idea anymore.

I was looking at a real piece software.

That distinction, seeing my idea made into something physical and functional, did something to my brain.

Once you can actually see your idea functioning and actually being useful, you stop asking whether you could ever build it and start asking:

What else can I do with this?

Chromatik grew from there and is now well past the original dream. It's still growing, and getting better by the day. 

What Chromatik Can Do Now

One of the parts I'm proudest of is the palette workspace.

I managed to fit a decent amount of functionality into a small workspace without making the interface feel too crowded. You can lock individual color cards, rearrange them, delete colors, undo and redo changes, rename palettes and colors, and save your work.

The Chromatik palette workspace.

There's also the AI palette generator, which is a pretty awesome feature but I can't take much credit for it. That was mostly Base44 understanding the assignment remarkably well.

AI palette generator. Uses preset options and prompts.

There are other cool features too, like color harmony where you can see the color scheme for any color without drawing any lines, and contrast checking to help with UI/website/game design. There's a lesson tab I hope to expand in the future and also an image color selector that allows you to build a palette from any image. Want to match your curtains and pillows? Snap a pic. Want to draw an image with the colors from the cotton candy at the fair? Snap a pic. Want to design a color accurate cosplay of your favorite anime character? Snap a pic. 

Just grab the colors from your image.

I'll say this whole experiment has been so interesting.

I came into this without traditional programming experience. Yet I was suddenly making decisions about how an actual software product should behave. And in regards to my original question, the AI was not stealing my creativity. It was helping me access it. Like any new technology, it is all about how you use it. 

But that's also where I discovered that AI app building isn't quite as effortless as the hype might make it sound.

Yes, There's a Learning Curve

Could someone with no programming experience open Base44 and build something?

You absolutely can. 

That's exactly what I did.

But if you're thinking about trying it yourself, there's something I wish had understood from the beginning. 

Your mistakes can cost you.

Base44 operates using a credit system. You receive credits to build with, and it's surprisingly easy to burn through your free credits when you're still learning how to communicate exactly what you want.

My biggest piece of advice is simple:

Take your time and design your layout in the very first prompt and be specific. 

Base44 will take shortcuts to get where it thinks you want to go.

If there's an easier interpretation of an ambiguous instruction, don't be surprised when that's the result you get.

The clearer your idea is before you start, the fewer things you'll have to rebuild later. And the fewer things you rebuild, the more credits you have available to create something new.

I also wouldn't spend an entire credit chasing every tiny UI annoyance the moment you notice it.

I burned thru plenty of credits doing that. Keep a notebook you can revisit instead.

In it, keep track of the little things. Group changes intelligently. Know what you're trying to accomplish before you send the next prompt.

And if prompt engineering isn't something you're already comfortable with, spend some time learning it first or work alongside another AI, such as ChatGPT, to help you design clear prompts before sending them to your app builder.

A good prompt can literally save you money.

Building an App Is More Than Making the Screen Look Pretty

There's another reality that becomes apparent once you move beyond prompt engineering and sheer creativity.

If you're going to hand your creation to other people, things get complicated quickly.

Now you have to think about accounts. Databases. Security. Permissions. Hosting. User data. What happens when someone does something you didn't expect them to do.

Backend handling. 

The backend exists whether you find it exciting or not.

My advice after building a few projects is to think about those things as early as possible.

You don't necessarily need to understand every technical detail before you begin. I certainly didn't.

But knowing what your app will eventually need makes it much easier to build the foundation for those features now instead of redesigning the entire thing three times later.

Ask me how I know.

The Biggest Thing Base44 Changed for Me

Before this, programming represented a barrier for me. It certainly wasn't the lack of creativity that kept me from designing things.

But now, I can describe what I want in ordinary language and turn an abstract idea into something concrete.

That is huge.

And it also doesn't mean skilled knowledge suddenly has no value. If anything, building Chromatik taught me how many different disciplines go into making good software.

But programming is no longer the barrier that prevents me from starting.

I think this is the part of AI-assisted development that interests me most.

Historically, having a great software idea wasn't enough. You also needed the technical ability to translate it into code, or the money to hire someone who could.

Tools like Base44 are changing that equation.

Ideas can increasingly compete on a more even playing field. The question becomes a little less about how well you can translate your idea into ones and zeros and a little more about whether the idea itself is useful, interesting and well designed.

That's an exciting change for creative people.

In less than two months, I've made three working applications. I've spent about $100 total on Base44 during that time.

Where else was I going to turn three of my ideas into working software for $100?

Would I Actually Recommend Base44?

Yes.

And I can say that pretty comfortably because I've already recommended it to all of my family members without earning a cent from those recommendations.

In retrospect, I really should have signed up for the affiliate program sooner.

Base44 also lets you start building for free. Casual users receive enough initial and daily credits to experiment before deciding whether this is something they want to pursue more seriously.

If you're someone who has an idea and has always assumed, I can't build an app because I don't know how to program, I think it's absolutely worth experimenting with.

If you're expecting to type one sentence and receive a flawless commercial product without learning anything about software design, security, users or prompting?

You're probably going to be disappointed.

The barrier is lower.

The work hasn't disappeared.

And personally, I think that's a good thing.

You Can Try the App I Built

Chromatik is currently live in its first public trial version.

You can try it here:

Chromatik- Creative Color Palette Studio

There's currently no signup required. Your color palettes are stored locally on your device, and the goal of this early version is partly to let people use the tool and partly to show what someone with no previous app-development experience can actually build with these new tools.

Chromatik V2 will introduce optional accounts along with a number of additional features I'm already working on.

This is very much the beginning.

And if you'd like to experiment with building something yourself, you can also try Base44 here:

Build Apps with Base 44

Disclosure: The Base44 link above is an affiliate link. If you choose to purchase a plan through it, I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. I built and paid for Base44 before joining its affiliate program, and the opinions in this article are based on my own experience using it.

The strangest part of this whole experiment is that I've felt the ability to express myself creatively more than ever, and I can even share that with other people through software like Chromatik.  

A few months ago, an app idea was something I might write down and forget about because I couldn't see a practical path from the idea to the finished thing.

Now?

I have an idea and wonder how long it'll take me to build the first version.

That's a very different way to look at what's possible.

What's possible for you?