01. - Start building

At the beginning of this year, I had a wake-up call—embrace AI into my workflow or risk becoming replaced within a year or two. Part of continuing to advance as an builder is to keep up with the tools, and technologies by continually learning. Through abstraction, each generation builds upon the prior, from machine code, to assembly, to compiled languages, (fast forward 20-30 years) to coding with natural language.

I've always been drawn to the idea of building a lean, value-driven business - one that embodies Pareto’s Law where 80% of the results come from just 20% of the effort. But how far can it go? How much can we accomplish by being smart with our time and effort in the new age of technology?

How It’s Built aims to explore these questions - what’s truly possible with AI-assisted execution and engineering. Rather than getting lost in the hype and surface-level demos, it’s about keeping my knives sharp - diving in and experimenting through shipping real products. Can a lean, focused, value-driven approach unlock 10x -100x efficiency? What can a solo builder achieve by learning the essentials and delivering results? The only way to find out is by building—finding projects, taking small, simple steps to identify what works, and refining along the way.

So let's start.

-Eric

About me

My name is Eric Hsiao and I've been a 2x co-founder and builder for the last 12+ years working at small startups to give products a fighting chance in the market. Along the way, I’ve had the privilege of working with world-class builders across a range of disciplines—from marketing and ML-Ops to health and wellness.