Build your own software without knowing how to code
This is the exact setup I use to run my coaching business. Four accounts, three downloads, and one first instruction. If you can fill in a form and click Next, you can do this.
What you are actually building
Whatever your business is, the software behind it is only ever three things stacked on top of each other.
You will not build any of that by hand. You will describe what you want in plain English, and an AI called Claude Code will build it while you watch. Your job is to know your own business and to say yes or no. That is genuinely the whole skill.
- Do the steps in order. Each one needs the one before it.
- Nothing here is permanent. Every account is free to delete and every file can be undone.
- You cannot break the internet. Nothing you make is visible to anyone until you decide to publish it.
- When you get stuck, paste the problem to Claude. Copy the red text, paste it, say "this happened, fix it". That is the answer to almost every problem in this guide.
Create four accounts
Do these in a web browser, in this order. Only the first one costs money. Set aside about 30 minutes.
Claude
The AI that writes all the code for you. This is the one that matters.
- Open the link above.
- Choose the Pro plan. It is $20 a month, or $17 a month if you pay for a year up front.
- Sign up with your email address and pay.
- Check your email and click the confirmation link they send you.
Supabase
Where all your information will live. This is the spreadsheet-on-the-internet from earlier.
- Open the link above and sign up. Signing in with GitHub is easiest, but if you do not have GitHub yet, just use your email and come back to it.
- Once you are in, click New project.
- Give it any name you like. Your business name is fine.
- It will generate a database password. Copy it and save it somewhere safe right now.
- For Region, pick the one closest to where you live.
- Click Create new project and wait about two minutes while it sets itself up.
You do not need to understand anything on the Supabase screen. You will never have to type into it. Claude talks to it for you.
GitHub
Your undo button and your backup. It quietly keeps a copy of every version of your work.
- Open the link above and click Sign up in the top right corner.
- Sign up with your email address.
- Pick any username. It does not matter, and nobody will see it.
- Confirm your email address when they send you the code.
- That is all. Do not create a repository. Claude will do that later.
Cloudflare
What puts your pages on the actual internet so other people can open them.
- Open the link above and click Sign up. Choose the free plan when it offers you a choice.
- Create the account with your email address.
- Confirm your email address.
- Stop there. Do not buy a domain and do not add a website yet. Claude will walk you through it when there is actually something to publish.
Install three things on your computer
These are downloads. You click Next until they finish. About 20 minutes, most of it waiting.
Claude Code
The app you will actually spend your time in. It reads and writes your project for you.
- Open the link above. It should detect whether you are on Windows or Mac automatically.
- Download the installer and open the file once it finishes.
- Click through the installer. All the default options are correct.
- When it opens, sign in with the same Claude account you paid for in step 1.
Git for Windows
A helper tool Claude uses behind the scenes. You will never open it yourself.
- Open the link above and choose 64-bit Git for Windows Setup. That is the right one for essentially every computer sold in the last decade.
- Open the downloaded file.
- The installer will ask you roughly ten questions. Click Next on every single one without reading them, then click Install. The defaults are all correct.
- When it finishes, untick "View release notes" and click Finish.
Node.js
The engine that turns your project into an actual website. Also invisible to you once installed.
- Open the link above and download the version marked LTS. LTS stands for long term support, which is a technical way of saying "the boring stable one". That is the one you want.
- Open the downloaded file.
- Click Next through the installer and accept the licence when asked.
- Let it finish. It may take a couple of minutes.
Make a home for your project
One folder. That is the whole step. Two minutes.
Create an empty folder
Everything you build will live inside it, forever.
- Open File Explorer on Windows, or Finder on a Mac.
- Go to your Documents folder.
- Right-click in the empty space and choose New, then Folder.
- Name it after your business, with no spaces. For example MyBusiness.
Open Claude Code and point it at your folder
This is the moment the setup ends and the building begins.
Start your first session
Claude needs to be told which folder it is allowed to work in.
- Open the Claude app from your Start menu, or from Applications on a Mac.
- Find the option to open a project or folder, and choose the folder you just made in step 8.
- Claude will ask for permission to read and write files in that folder. Say yes. It can only touch that one folder, nothing else on your computer.
- You should now see an empty chat box waiting for you.
Your first instruction
Copy the text below and paste it into the chat box. Do not change anything except the parts in brackets.
This first message does something specific and important: it stops Claude from writing any code until it understands your business. Most beginners get this backwards, ask for a finished app on message one, and end up with something impressive that fits nobody.
I have never written code before. Please assume I know nothing technical and explain everything in plain English. I want to build a private system to run my business, and eventually a small public website that connects to it. My business is: [DESCRIBE YOUR BUSINESS IN ONE SENTENCE] Right now I keep track of things using: [SPREADSHEETS / MY HEAD / PAPER / WHATEVER IT IS] I already have accounts with Claude, Supabase, GitHub and Cloudflare, and I have installed Git and Node.js on this computer. Do NOT write any code yet. Instead, interview me. Ask me one question at a time about how my business actually works and what I need to keep track of. Keep asking until you genuinely understand it. When you are confident you understand, show me a plain English list of the information we should store, and wait for me to approve it before you build anything.
What to ask for, in order
After the interview, build in this sequence. Each step only makes sense because the one before it exists. Give it days or weeks, not hours.
Below are the six requests, in the order that works. Paste them one at a time, and only move to the next one once the current one actually works.
Set up the Supabase database with the tables we agreed on. Walk me through connecting my Supabase account step by step, and tell me exactly what to click and what to copy. Then put a few rows of fake example data in so I can see it working.
Now build me one private web page that shows that information in a clean table, and lets me add, edit and delete rows. I want to run it on my own computer first, before anything goes on the internet. Tell me exactly how to open it.
This works. Now help me put it online with Cloudflare Pages, and put it behind a login so only I can see it. Walk me through every click, and tell me what to do if something fails.
Now build a public page where someone who is not me can fill in a form, and have their answers arrive in my database automatically. Make sure nobody can see anyone else's information.
Set up email so my system can send messages automatically. Explain my options first, tell me which one you recommend for someone at my size and why, and then set it up with me.
Now set up something that runs on a schedule without me doing anything, even when my computer is off. Start with one simple example, like a reminder email that goes out every morning.
The one habit that matters more than everything else
If you remember nothing else from this page, remember this part.
Claude is brilliant and it forgets. Every new conversation starts from nothing. So the moment you correct it, that correction has to be written down, or you will be having the same argument in a month.
There is a file for this. It is called CLAUDE.md, it lives in your project folder, and Claude reads it automatically at the start of every single conversation. It is the memory it does not otherwise have.
Create a CLAUDE.md file in this project. From now on, whenever I correct you, or tell you a rule about how this project works, or you make a mistake we have to fix, add it to that file in your own words along with why it matters. Do this immediately when it happens, not at the end of the session.
My own version of that file is now long, and it is the single most valuable thing in my entire project. It carries rules like "never send a test email to a real customer" and "always check X before you change Y". Every one of those lines exists because something went wrong once. Written down, it went wrong exactly once.
What it costs
Real numbers, checked in August 2026. Everything except Claude stays free until you are genuinely busy.
So: roughly $20 a month to start. For comparison, the off-the-shelf tools that do a fraction of this typically run $100 to $300 a month once you have a few hundred customers, and you cannot change how they work.
When something goes wrong
It will, on the first day, and it is almost never your fault.
One last thing
I am not a developer. I built what I have by doing exactly what is on this page, badly at first, for months. The thing that made the difference was not talent and it was not any clever choice of tools. It was building one small piece at a time, using it for real, and writing down every rule the moment I learned it.
Start with the boring thing you already do by hand every week. Make the computer do that one thing. Then look up.
Iván Chocrón
Prices and download links verified August 2026. If a link has moved, search for the service by name and use the official site.