# The Build Board, No. 0.2: The Build First Five

*Five things you can build this week, each with the prompt to ship it.*

By [The Build Board](https://paragraph.com/@buildboard) · 2026-06-11

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**The Build Board** is brought to you by Bethany Crystal. Here are five things you can build this week, inspired by real problems on the ground at [Build First](https://buildfirst.ai/). Every prompt follows **POP-IT**, the frame we teach in every session: Problem, Output, Prompt, Input, Test.

_\[BC note - This is v 0.2 of a new newsletter concept, thanks for testing it out. Feedback welcome.\]_

**🔨 The Build First Five:**  
5 Things to Build This Week, Inspired by Real Stories & Current Events  

**1\. Something weird out of a book you love.** The model stopped being the bottleneck. [Your imagination is](https://x.com/blakeir/status/2064442276579819545). Pick a public-domain text and build the strange thing only you'd think of. _"Here's the full text of \[book\]. Build a single-page web app that \[your weird idea, e.g. 'turns each chapter into a tarot card'\]. One HTML file. Ask one question if unclear, then build."_ Not sure where to start? Grab the complete works of William Shakespeare from [Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org).

**2\. A personal OS dashboard.** Your whole financial picture in one view. _"Here's my financial data \[accounts, income, monthly expenses, balances\]. Build a single-page dashboard showing my net worth, monthly cash flow, and a 12-month projection with a savings-rate slider I can drag. One HTML file, keep my data local."_ Test it: do the projections move when you drag the slider?

**3\. A tool out of the spreadsheet on your desk.** Last month in Chicago, Build First led a room of 150 operators toward their first builds with Claude Code, using just a single data source. Turns out, the data you already touch daily is perfect raw material for an LLM. _Try: "Here's a spreadsheet I work with \[attach\]. Build a small tool that does \[what I do by hand\]. One file, ask what's unclear first."_

**4\. An agent for your most boring weekly task.** [Devpost](https://info.devpost.com/research/ai-trends-report-2026) found 1 in 4 hackathon projects is now an agent, and 97% of devs picked their own tools, not their company's. Stop waiting for permission. _"Here's a task I do by hand every week: \[task\]. Draft a simple agent that does it start to finish, and list what you need from me first."_

**5\. A machine-readable version of your work.** As [Cloudflare found](https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/its-official-agentic-bots-surf-the-web-more-than-real-people-do/), agents now drive 57.4% of web traffic, so your next reader is more likely to be a bot than a human. Start prepping your brand accordingly. _Try: "Output this page as clean JSON an agent could read, then tell me what's missing for a machine to act on it."_

Ship one tonight, then hit reply and tell me what you made. I read every one.

**📍 From the ground floor**

This is what it looks like when a room actually builds together.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/2fe67a6a26224efd501b0de768d41f4a157f3f0a20ac77d2dc3caf28af824ddb.jpg)

Happy people building shit - is there anything better? (Image source: Operators Guild summit)

Getting itchy to build something yourself?

→ [Book time to chat with Build First](https://calendly.com/bethanytime/build-first-15-min-intro) about running your next hackathon or workshop

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*Originally published on [The Build Board](https://paragraph.com/@buildboard/the-build-board-no-02-the-build-first-five)*