I built a blog in 4 days using AI — zero web dev experience, zero English writing history, from China. Here's the live experiment (Day 24).
I'm an ordinary Chinese person. Not a developer. My English is functional, not fluent.
Four days was all it took to go from zero to live:
- Day 1: Domain registered, hosting connected, WordPress up
- Day 2: First articles published, first AI tools built
- Day 3: Google Search Console submitted
- Day 4: First GSC impression recorded
Here's where the experiment stands today (Day 24):
- Articles published: 53
- Free tools built: 21 (life simulators, investing tools, Chinese learning)
- Amazon affiliate clicks: 12
- Amazon sales: 0
- Google organic traffic: still basically zero
Nothing is hidden. That's the rule.
Why I'm doing this: my child is in high school. I want to leave them a real record of what "building something from nothing" actually looks like — not the highlight reel, not the success story written in hindsight.
The tools are free, no login, all run in the browser:
- 11 life simulators (make the real decisions of Buffett, Jobs, Musk, Mandela...)
- Investing tools, Chinese learning tools, psychology games
Goal: 3 Amazon affiliate sales before December 17. Still at 0.
Live timeline: https://ordinarymantrying.com/building-in-public-experiment/
Happy to answer anything about the China angle, the AI workflow, or what it's like building in a second language.
This reminds me that transparency compounds differently than traffic.
Most people share results after they work. You're documenting the uncertainty while it's still unfolding. Even if the numbers stay small for a while, that record can become an asset that's much harder for others to replicate than another AI-built blog.