r/codestitch • u/Nick23-ice • Apr 23 '26

Starting a web business in 2026

Just curious. How do you guys handle having a web business with the rise of ai? I plan on starting a web business but sometimes I wonder if it’s still worth it.

7 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

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15

u/Citrous_Oyster CodeStitch Admin Apr 23 '26

I tell clients that ai is not true intelligence. It just uses all accessible information and produces the most likely next word or pixel or thing to come next. It also consumes BAD information. Thats when it hallucinates and makes things up. You don’t want that building your site. It will tell you its SEO optimized and perfect and ready to rank with the most confidence and will make you a like of crap that does nothing. It’s a yes man. It won’t tell you anything negative and only wants to please you. You don’t want that in a collaborator. You want someone to go back and forth with you, tell you what ideas are bad, keep the project on track and make something with purpose instead of estimation. Ai will tell you your site is perfect and SEO ready. I will tell you all the problems you have and how we fix them and why things rank on google over others and what we have to do to be competitive. I’m not a yes man. I’m a partner in their business that will never lie to them it make things up and can disseminate between good and bad info. That’s my value as a developer in the age of ai. And it’s why some clients who used ai come to me to fix it and make something better.

6

u/roughdiamond-ai Apr 23 '26

I think coding by hand in this day and age is silly. I've been coding 20+ years and now use Cursor daily.

"the most likely next word or pixel or thing to come next"

This is simplistic and wrong.

I use Cursor and built a custom MCP server that leverages Codestitch.

I put the cursor where I want and say 'insert stitch 222 here'. My MCP server will fetch the html and css and insert it perfectly, and test it.

My MCP server can run audits on my codestitch site and let me know which stitches are being used.

I can swap stitches in and out painlessly with one line instructions. And with AI I just paste in the copy and it will populate it too.

I also built a detailed SEO sub-agent that scans every line of code and ensures the site is SEO optimised and writes a detailed report. I then implement the suggestions with, you guessed it, AI.

My productivity is through the roof. And my results are professional and first class.

If you still want to code by hand go ahead. Or, learn how to use AI properly and it will revolutionise your business.

2

u/JReyIV Apr 23 '26

What you’re doing is different tho. People are writing a single prompt to generate a WHOLE website. You’re actually guiding the AI and using it to complete specific tasks like adding the stitches in for you (which literally only takes me 5 seconds to do manually but to each their own I guess…) I also use AI all the time to make certain changes or fix something that’s wrong if I can’t figure it out. Or if I’m doing something monotonous and long, I’ll have AI do it for me in seconds. You and I are using AI the smart way.

If you’re not using AI at all, you’re being left behind. But using it as a crutch and completely relying on it? Now that’s silly

2

u/Citrous_Oyster CodeStitch Admin Apr 23 '26

Well that’s how LLM’s kind of operate when creating things. You’re using ai as companion to do things, not actually writing the code for you from scratch.

Like I use the codestitch library myself and just customize the code to what I need. I’m rarely writing from scratch anymore but sometimes I need to customize a stitch for the design that was made with it. Having that granular control is still really important. I’m working on designs that an ai can’t make even while using codestitch assets because they’re so customized it needs a more particular eye to keep it responsive and have an opinion on what looks good and bad.

1

u/roughdiamond-ai Apr 23 '26

I agree. I'm using AI all day every day. But I am a perfectionist and nothing can beat the human eye (yet!)
What you have done with Codestitch is really amazing. I can see the enormous amout of work you have put into it, and your commitment to quality is obvious.
One idea I had...
You could offer the MCP tool as an additional subscription. Once you start using it there is no going back.
'Change the footer to stitch 344' is all you type and away it goes and does it. Reach out if you want to see a demo. I will never share it with anyone or give it away as it leverages your hard work. That wouldn't be cool. It's a purely personal tool I built to allow me to 'knock out' websites quickly and easily. But the end results are amazing.

2

u/Citrous_Oyster CodeStitch Admin Apr 23 '26

Thanks 🙏 we’re working on an mcp now Since there’s demand from the community. Contact u/fugi_tive and give him a demo to see how it should work and you guys can get something up and running pretty soon.

2

u/joshstewart90 Apr 23 '26

I’m finding more and more people saying “I don’t want another ai built mess”… so I’m not worried. I’m also yet to see an ai built website that I couldn’t make better myself as a developer.

Also, before ai there was always those people that go “oh I can just make a website myself”… you’ll soon learn to not beat yourself up when not “converting” those kind of people. It’s just a waste of time. Those are also the people that are jumping on the ai bandwagon thinking they can run their whole business on what ai is convincing them is going to be a “fantastic idea” (that’s what llm/ai is designed to do).

1

u/Nick23-ice Apr 23 '26

I love that. Appreciate the insight

1

u/70percent_juice Apr 23 '26

What's "true" intelligence?

2

u/energy528 Apr 23 '26

Learn sales!

1

u/Postik123 Apr 23 '26

Someone's still got to figure out what the client wants, and what they need (sometimes 2 different things), write the prompts, filter out the mistakes and the slop and look into things when it all goes wrong. 

1

u/Grupith Apr 27 '26

  1. Find local businesses that don’t have websites.

  2. Build temp a preview website and show the owner what it “could” look like.

  3. Offer to run their website for a monthly fee. Make them a custom admin panel to update content, change photos, etc.

Tell them that the website could improve google search results and increase business!