How to come up with UNLIMITED ideas for apps you can build with AI

Complete guide to coming up with ideas for apps, even if you've never coded before

Welcome to the first official issue of Ship/It weekly! I’ll be sending these AI tutorials and guides out 1-2 times a week. I promise if you take 3 minutes or so to read the whole newsletter, you’ll become an AI machine! Since this is coming from a new sender, make sure to move this email to primary and mark the email as important! Let’s get into it:

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How to come up with UNLIMITED ideas for apps you can build with AI

The number 1 complaint I hear from people thinking about getting into vibe coding (building apps with AI) is that they have ZERO idea what they should build. They are waiting to dive into Claude Code until the perfect idea comes to them.

This is such a massive mistake that is so easily fixable.

First, if you wait for the perfect idea, it’ll never come to you.

Second, it’s so easy to come up with ideas, especially if you leverage AI.

I try to work on a side project every single day. Most of the time, I’m building out brand new ideas.

For instance, a few nights ago I started work on a Polymarket Scanner that surfaces interesting bets people are making in real time. This idea came to me from a quick chat I do with AI regularly.

AI is the BEST ideation partner in the world. And it’s by far it’s most underutilized function.

If you’re not ideating and bouncing ideas off AI daily, you’re missing out on the idea that can change your life.

Here’s how I do it:

First step is creating a project in your LLM app of choice. I created a project in ChatGPT (because I think GPT5 is the best business ideating model on the planet right now). It looks like this:

You set up a project then create documents around every aspect of your life and business. This gives the LLM context which is CRITICAL for coming up with good ideas.

Next you steal this prompt and use it:

Based on what you know about me, and based on these other topics I’m thinking about (list of topics), what are 10 challenges people in my niches are having right now? And what are ideas for 10 apps that will solve those challenges?

(Use the extended thinking version of whatever model you’re using).

Hit send on that and you’ll get a list of ideas back. Now this isn’t the final list. You can either choose one of the ideas, or refine the list. Mention which ones you like or don’t like and why. Then ask for a more refined, detailed list.

Let the LLM know which ones you find interesting and why. Keep going back and forth. This isn’t supposed to be one shot.

Eventually you’ll land on an idea. Now listen, it doesn’t need to be perfect. Perfection will come from the process of building. Take an idea and start building it out. As you build, more ideas will come to you and you’ll continue to refine.

My Polymarket idea only came from me building a stock scanner. Then the Polymarket idea came to me after.

All you’re looking for is a spark from this conversation. Take that spark then slowly feed it oxygen by building and tinkering.

Make this a daily exercise, and I promise you the perfect idea will eventually come.

Have an ideation process or prompt you like to use for this? Hit reply and let me know!

Also in 2 days the first Ship/It Builders kit comes out. Every week I’ll be building and shipping an open source project to the people on the Ship/It premium newsletter. It’ll have all the code, a one click deployment so you can use it, and a description of how you can turn it into a business. Make sure to upgrade now so you don’t miss a single build kit!

Want to grow faster on X? Check out the number 1 AI content tool on planet Earth, Creator Buddy. I built it completely by myself and has taken X by storm!

Have a fantastic week building everyone!

-Alex