Netlify’s CTO: You learn more from shipping 30 imperfect apps than from one perfect tutorial

Netlify's CTO Dana Lawson said that developers learn more from shipping 30 imperfect apps than from one perfect tutorial, citing the company's Hot App Summer challenge where participants built one AI-assisted app daily for 30 days. Netlify crossed 16 million users, adding 1 million in three weeks, with growth driven by coding agents and a broader audience including finance and sales teams. Lawson noted that AI is lowering barriers to software development, enabling people to solve small, everyday problems with custom software.

Netlify’s CTO: You learn more from shipping 30 imperfect apps than from one perfect tutorial Last autumn, I had the chance to speak with Dana Lawson https://shiftmag.dev/unlock-your-true-full-stack-potential-with-ai-agents-6887/ , CTO at Netlify, for ShiftMag. This year, I was thrilled to learn that she’ll be joining us as a speaker at Infobip Shift https://shift.infobip.com/?%7CEU%7C-Shift Zadar 2024-%5BTy:G Brand Search;Lng:EN;Bid:MAN eCPC%5D in Zadar – and ShiftMag readers can get a special discount https://www.entrio.hr/en/event/infobip-shift-2026-27033?pc=MAG15 . Ahead of her talk, I wanted to talk to her about Hot App Summer https://x.com/Netlify/status/2062165455104618982 , Netlify’s community challenge that encouraged developers to ship one AI-assisted or vibecoded app every day for 30 days in June, because it’s a great example of how AI is changing the way we learn, build, and experiment with software. Netlify got 1.000.000 users in three weeks Netlify recently crossed 16 million users, adding 1 million of them in just three weeks https://lnkd.in/p/dtErY2gR . For Dana, the milestone itself is less interesting than the pace of growth – and what it says about who is building software today: The number is exciting, but the pace tells the real story: it points to a fundamental shift in how software gets built. As Netlify’s CEO Mett Billman in his post says, when Netlify crossed 10 million users, much of the growth was driven by developers discovering the platform through coding agents. That wave hasn’t slowed, but the audience is expanding beyond professional developers : finance teams are building dashboards, sales teams are creating prototypes for prospects, and customer success teams are shipping tools they once would have needed engineering to build. AI is lowering the barrier to software development to the point where building is no longer reserved for people with deep technical expertise. Someone with an idea, a spreadsheet, and an internet connection can increasingly turn that idea into working software in hours. We can now learn by shipping That shift was on full display in Hot App Summer https://lnkd.in/p/d9kvmgEM , which started as a “build one app a day” challenge and grew into a community where people publicly shared their projects and experiences . As Lawson put it, “People were not competing, they were inspiring each other.” What stood out to Dana most was what that revealed about how people learn today: People learn by shipping. You can build something on Monday, discover what you still don’t know on Tuesday, improve it on Wednesday, and then repeat the process. As she put it, you learn more from thirty imperfect apps than from one perfect tutorial, because every project exposes something new to solve. Now, even small problems can be solved with software Looking back at the projects created during challenge, Dana points out that most were not attempts to build the next billion-dollar startup : Many focused on solving small, everyday problems – from time management and business processes to family coordination and content creation. That part of the software market has often been underserved because custom solutions were not always worth building financially. AI suddenly makes these niche problems economically viable to solve. Engineers are not disappearing, their role is expanding Netlify’s CTO believes this lower barrier to entry points to a much bigger shift across the industry: computer literacy is changing . It used to mean knowing how to use technology, but today it also means knowing how to create with it. This allows experts from different fields to solve problems in their own areas without waiting for someone else to create the tools they need: A CFO can build a forecasting system, a teacher can create a classroom tool, a small business owner can create their own software instead of waiting for someone else to build it. In her view, more people creating software does not make engineers less important and at Shift in Zadar https://shift.infobip.com/?%7CEU%7C-Shift Zadar 2024-%5BTy:G Brand Search;Lng:EN;Bid:MAN eCPC%5D , she is going to challenge the idea that AI makes professional engineers less valuable . Her point is the opposite: as more people start building software, strong infrastructure, security, and engineering practices matter even more: Engineers are not disappearing, their role is expanding. They are becoming the people who build platforms, guardrails, and systems that allow millions of others to develop software safely.