How a solo founder used Codex and ChatGPT to launch a fashion brand without engineers | Yana Welinder

Yana Welinder, solo founder of Yana Bana, used OpenAI's Codex and ChatGPT Images 2.0 to launch an AI-native fashion brand without engineers, creating designs from hand-drawn sketches to runway photos, CAD files for 3D printing, and a Stripe-connected pre-order site. She detailed her workflow on the podcast, including using Codex with computer use to operate CLO 3D software and building the e-commerce site with Vercel, GitHub, and Stripe.

Yana Welinder is the solo founder of Yana Bana, an AI-native fashion brand built with AI as her technical co-founder, starting from hand-drawn sketches and ending with runway photos, CAD files for 3D printing, and a live Stripe-connected pre-order site—no engineers required. A former product leader, she brings an operator’s rigor to her creative process: her “fashion prompt” is a detailed spec covering silhouette, volume, fabric beavior, movement, and sound, and watching her use Codex plus computer use to navigate 3D design software that’s entirely new to her is a clarifying demo of what today’s toolset actually makes possible. Listen or watch on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts What you’ll learn: How Yana uses a custom fashion prompt as a technical spec to get consistent, realistic, on-design outputs Why ChatGPT Images 2.0 outperforms other models for fashion design How she uses Codex plus computer use to operate CAD and fashion software she’s never personally learned The workflow for taking a garment from hand-drawn sketch to product photo, runway photo, and influencer shot in a single session How she ran vendor outreach end to end using deep research and browser use How she built a full e-commerce site with voting, databases, and Stripe integration Why she’s testing human patternmakers and Codex in parallel Brought to you by: Merge —Connective infrastructure for production AI Jira AI SDLC —Get your tokens’ worth with Jira In this episode, we cover: 00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P03ZNceXe2A Introducing Yana Welinder and Yana Bana 02:38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P03ZNceXe2A&t=158s Tour of the Yana Bana site 05:20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P03ZNceXe2A&t=320s The fashion prompt stack 07:39 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P03ZNceXe2A&t=459s Live demo: generating a jacket from a prompt in ChatGPT 10:01 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P03ZNceXe2A&t=601s Why Image Gen 2.0 beats other models 11:51 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P03ZNceXe2A&t=711s The “prompt as spec” principle 14:02 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P03ZNceXe2A&t=842s Iterating the design 17:12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P03ZNceXe2A&t=1032s Using Codex and computer use to build CAD files in 3D software 20:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P03ZNceXe2A&t=1250s Vendor research, outreach emails, and Superhuman browser use 23:34 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P03ZNceXe2A&t=1414s Building the full e-commerce site 27:40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P03ZNceXe2A&t=1660s Quick recap and what’s still hard 30:05 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P03ZNceXe2A&t=1805s How Yana prompts when AI pushes back 31:15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P03ZNceXe2A&t=1875s Where to find Yana and how to vote on her garments Tools referenced: • ChatGPT Images 2.0 : https://chat.openai.com https://chat.openai.com • Codex OpenAI : https://openai.com/codex https://openai.com/codex • CLO 3D fashion pattern software : https://www.clo3d.com https://www.clo3d.com • Vercel: https://vercel.com https://vercel.com • GitHub: https://github.com https://github.com • Stripe: https://stripe.com https://stripe.com • Superhuman: https://superhuman.com https://superhuman.com Other references: • Ruth Asawa: https://ruthasawa.com https://ruthasawa.com • SFMOMA Ruth Asawa : https://www.sfmoma.org/artist/Ruth Asawa/ https://www.sfmoma.org/artist/Ruth Asawa/ Where to find Yana Welinder: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ywelinder/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/ywelinder/ Website: https://www.yanabana.com https://www.yanabana.com Where to find Claire Vo: ChatPRD: https://www.chatprd.ai/ https://www.chatprd.ai/ Website: https://clairevo.com/ https://clairevo.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/ Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email email protected /cdn-cgi/l/email-protection .