The 90-9-1 Rule: Moving from Consuming to Building
Why I decided to stop just consuming content on the internet and start building tiny projects of my own with AI.
In internet culture, there is a simple rule called the 90-9-1 principle: out of 100 people, 90 consume, 9 distribute or curate, and only 1 actually builds something new.
For most of my life, I lived comfortably between the 90 and the 9. I read articles, watched YouTube lectures, analyzed products, and distributed ideas through marketing campaigns. Because I came from a non-tech, no-code background, building software always felt like a locked room that belonged to engineers.
What Changed
AI opened that locked door for me.
For the first time, I realized I could describe a problem clearly, break it down into logical steps, and work alongside AI coding agents to turn an idea into a working tool.
I am still a complete newbie on this path. My projects are tiny:
- Snapcard: A small web app to send digital postcards with a single link.
- Marketing Systems Lab: A public notebook on GitHub where I practice measurement, funnels, and AI workflows.
- AiPRIL: This personal website and its own lightweight Markdown CMS.
The Goal Is Not to Oversell
I don't want to pretend to be a hardcore software engineer. By day, I am a 9-to-5 marketer and operator who puts business impact first.
By night and on weekends, I just want to be part of the 1% who builds, even if what I build starts small.