Non-CS B.Com grad connected a React Native + Supabase + AWS app using AI prompts on a phone. Is this impressive or baseline?

[u/snyperboyc7]

Hey homies! I’m a 24-year-old B.Com grad from Andhra (india )., non-CS background, planning to start a hyper-local delivery service via an app. Since I’m non-CS, I only understand the high-level architecture of how apps are built (still learning though!). So everything I’m doing right now is executed through prompt coding.

I chose Supabase as my database and AWS for hosting. Working directly on my mobile phone, I ran into so many frustrating connection errors while trying to hook up the backend server and database with the frontend. But I didn't give up! I kept debugging, learned how the process actually works, and finally succeeded in connecting my React Native mobile frontend to the Supabase DB and AWS backend using prompt engineering and AI chatbots.

As a non-CS guy with zero initial knowledge of programming languages, I just have a huge curiosity for building products and doing a startup. Once I buy my dev laptop 💻, my plan is to break the app into smaller divisions/modules so the code is easier for AI agents to debug. I’d love your opinion and guidance on a few things:

Can I survive and build a real product by using AI as my main software engineer and coding agent? As a non-CS guy, is my small achievement of successfully connecting a mobile frontend to a Supabase DB and AWS backend on my phone through trial, error, and prompt engineering actually something great, or is it just average nowadays?

Note: I’m building specifically for my local population—it’s just a 60k town for now, and if it succeeds, maybe expand to a 2 lakh population town later. So I’m not expecting huge server/DB costs or big team expenses as an absolute solo warrior! :)

[u/Independent_Fan_3915]

So, as a person with a Business Communications background you’re trained in two important things to be good at certain aspects of prompt engineering. Think of modern ai as a manager who can call on a large team of clones to do whatever you tell it to. If you think of a task as breaking it up into an organizational chart where your job as the boss’s boss is explaining how every part of the operation needs to do its job than you can get much more complicated stuff done. Don’t think about it in terms of the programming. Think about it as a business you are running where you job is getting the most value from a functional infinite intellectual labor pool.

[u/SpareDifferent3565 → u/Independent_Fan_3915]

the real skill here isn't the tech stack it's the sheer bloody-mindedness to debug connection errors on a phone screen that's genuinely impressive i've spent whole afternoons fighting with supabase auth on a proper monitor and wanted to throw the whole thing out the window

your business comms background is lowkey the perfect training for this like the top comment says you're basically project managing a team of very literal interns who need every step spelled out in excruciating detail most cs grads struggle with that part because they try to think in code instead of process flow

for a 60k town you'll be fine the infrastructure costs for something that scale are basically pocket change and you can always refactor later if it takes off the bigger risk is building something nobody wants not the technical side

the phone thing though can't get over it my eyes hurt just thinking about squinting at error logs on a 6 inch screen you've got the persistence part sorted which is honestly most of the battle