The real winner of the entrepreneur Kool-aid

I’ve always struggled with focus and motivation when it comes to building software for myself. There are always exciting things to try out new technologies, frameworks, or ideas. But before you can release something truly useful to the world, there’s a lot of boring work that needs to be done.

When LLMs entered the coding world, it felt like the answer to my problems. Suddenly, they could take care of large swaths of boilerplate code, freeing me up to focus on the tricky and fun parts. Perfect! I’ve been enjoying this shift for months now.

But with the boilerplate gone, I started noticing something else: some functionality is either so complex or so bogged down by bureaucracy that other developers have built tools and products to simplify those flows. Even with the help of LLMs it's a huge pain. I admire their entrepreneurial spirit the way they’ve made things easier for everyone. They’ve made integration so effortless that it often feels like a no-brainer to adopt their tools, especially when you’re stuck with vague, unhelpful error messages.

In my journey of building an app for saving recipes (save-recipe.com), I’ve been using a bunch of these tools to make the app a reality. From backend services to Apple developer accounts and in-app purchase handlers, I’ve noticed that, slowly but surely, I’m being turned into a bit of a cash cow.

Here are some of the costs:

  • LLM (OpenAI): €20/month

  • OpenAPI: €1-€5/month

  • Apple Developer Account: €99/year

  • Supabase: Free (for now)

  • Render: €7/month

  • Expo Starter: €19/month

  • GoDaddy: €19/year

  • MailerSend: Free (for now)

  • iCloud custom email: €19/month (for personal use as well)

And I’m probably missing a few. It’s not a huge amount, but it’s more than I initially expected. Combine that with the push from social media, especially tech social media, around the entrepreneurial dream, and you start to realize it’s not all about the spirit of building. There’s real money to be made. The reality is that most of the things built with these tools won’t make a dime. Yet, the companies behind them have found a steady revenue stream by banking on people’s desire to create something of their own.

It might sound naive that it hadn’t fully dawned on me until now, but you don’t really see it until you fall into the trap yourself.

That said, I’ll keep using these tools. It’s fair game, and I still love building. They help me release faster, which I think is key to making something useful. But, it’s been an important lesson about discovering opportunities.