Thanksgiving Idea → 1,000 Users by Christmas - all built with AI | Andrew Miller

A Thanksgiving idea. A thousand paying users by Christmas. All built with the gift of AI. And all while holding down a full-time job!

In this episode of Built With AI, host Colin Matthews talks to Andrew Miller, the creator of Distl - an AI-powered tool that delivers daily or weekly “pulses” on any topic you choose. Think Google Alerts, supercharged by LLMs.

Andrew shares how he went from idea to launch in just a few weeks, gained over 1,200 users, and shipped features entirely with AI coding tools like Cursor, without writing code himself.

We cover:
How Distl sources and summarizes content from the web using Perplexity + LLMs

The workflow Andrew uses to prompt AI step by step and ship production-ready code

Why context, specificity, and scope are critical for good AI prompts

A live demo of building a new feature in Distl using Cursor

Lessons from scaling a side project to thousands of users, and a viral TikTok launch

Andrew brings different perspectives to this project including design and technical. Something that's a real benefit.

He uses a number of AI tools to build the app.

For building & coding:
Cursor → his main coding environment (AI-powered code editor)

Claude (Anthropic models) → often via Cursor, especially Claude 4 Sonnet

GPT-4o / OpenAI models → as a “senior architect” thought partner when planning features.

= Thinking models (o1, o3, etc.) → for complex features or major architectural changes.

For the product stack itself:
React (front end).
Node + Express (back end).
Heroku (hosting).
Cloudflare (DNS).
Stripe (payments).

For content sourcing:
Perplexity → used to find and surface relevant new content before LLM summarization.

So his workflow combines AI copilots (Cursor + Claude/GPT) with a fairly standard SaaS tech stack (React, Node, Heroku, Stripe).

00:00 Intro – Meet Andrew & Distl
01:00 Andrew’s background in tech & product
03:30 Building Distl over Thanksgiving break
06:00 How Distl works – AI-powered Google Alerts
09:30 Demo: creating & managing pulses
12:00 Daily digest emails & citations
13:20 Growth: 1,200+ users & 180,000 pulses
14:40 Building without writing code (Cursor workflow)
17:30 Prompt-driven development explained
20:00 Context, specificity & scope in prompts
23:30 Demo: shipping a new feature live
29:00 Reviewing & understanding AI-generated code
35:30 The rise of new AI builders & challenges
39:00 Building sustainable, maintainable products
42:00 What’s next for Andrew & Distl
42:30 How Andrew got his first 1,000 users (TikTok)

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Colin teaches technical + AI foundations for Product Managers at: https://techforproduct.com

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