Nine weeks ago, my twins were born. I'm currently on paternity leave from my Director of Operations role at an MSP in Central Florida.
Most people would use this time to sleep (when they can). Instead, I'm building four businesses between nap windows — one to two hours at a time, whenever the babies go down.
Here's what I'm working on and the stack behind all of it.
The Projects
Project 1 — A mobile app for tradespeople. Plumbers, electricians, HVAC techs — they need job checklists on-site, and they need to turn those checklists into invoices and PDFs when the work is done. This app lets them build custom templates tailored to their trade and handles the paperwork automatically. Built with React Native, Expo, Supabase, and RevenueCat.
Project 2 — An automated lead engine. It scrapes the web daily for people actively looking for solutions to the problems my other projects solve, then emails me a curated list of leads every morning. Built entirely with Make.com and the Claude API for about $0.01 per day to run.
Project 3 — A baby and toddler clothing brand. Vaporwave aesthetic — think pastel cityscapes and retro-future vibes for infants. If you know, you know. Runs on Shopify and Printful.
Project 4 — A location-based app for resellers. Think treasure-hunting, but with real-time maps and filters. Still in early development. React Native, Expo, Supabase, Google Maps API.
The One Tool That Makes It All Possible
Claude AI. It's not one piece of the stack — it's the entire co-builder. Claude writes code with me, debugs app store rejections, processes product images, drafts automation logic, and helps me think through architecture decisions. Every one of these projects was built in collaboration with Claude during one- to two-hour nap windows.
The Surprise
Building the mobile app was shockingly easy. React Native, Supabase, RevenueCat — the app came together faster than I expected. What nearly broke me was getting it into the App Store. Apple's review process rejected me multiple times — missing paywall info, placeholder icons, in-app purchase products not submitted correctly, a missing account deletion option. The red tape took longer than the actual development.
If you're building your first app, budget twice as much time for the submission process as you do for the code.
The Playbook: My $0.01/Day Lead Finder
Here's the setup in 60 seconds: In Make.com, a scheduled trigger fires daily → hits the Claude API (Sonnet, no web search to keep costs near zero) → Claude analyzes and formats leads → pipes the results into a Gmail module that sends to my inbox. Total cost: roughly a penny a day. The trickiest part? Make.com's variable picker. If you type the content array variable manually instead of using the picker, it drops on save. Always use the picker.
That's it for this week.
Want help automating your business? Reply to this email and let's talk about what I can build for you.
— Pat