I started learning web development at the start of this year and one thing led to another and I’m now trying to build near enough an entire business’ online system.
I’m building an AI and automation enhanced business simulation.
There’s two main purposes: teach myself full stack development, and experiment with where AI and automation fits in modern business systems. I’m trying to treat it like a real business so I can see how and where things can be different to a system that doesn’t use AI or workflow automation.
It started off as an attempt to build the frontend a customer would use so I could practice with state. Then I decided it would be cool to have the opposing merchant interface where you can view the orders. So I needed to make the backend.
But, given the times we’re in, I thought it would be interesting to see I can use AI and automation in ways that would save a user time, or just deliver helpful results.
Now, my long term plan is to create an entire product pipeline, with product suggestions from a ‘supplier’, marketing content created, product going to warehouse, then product available for order. But that’s a ways off.
For now I’m focused on developing the customer and merchant ends with these primary features:
· Shared backend
· Customer service chatbot on customer side
· AI assistant on merchant side
· AI overwatch feature to monitor AI behaviour
Eventually I’d like to experiment with adding analytics and CEO suggestions features from the AI but again that’s a ways off.
I’ve set up self-hosted n8n which I’ll use for workflows where necessary, and I think once the meat of the project is done I’ll get a bit creative with that.
I’m building it in slices; rather than trying to make the whole backend at once, I’m building it by function. Currently, I’m on the first slice, the cart. This is my first time attempting to write backend code.
What I’m enjoying is the logical, layered approach; I have router, application, service and data layers, each with their own jobs. And because the backend is entirely abstract so I cant rely on looking at where my elements are going on screen (like with frontend) I’m learning to properly understand how data is passed with javascript.
I realised early on that if I’m to have an AI logging system I’ll have to think data first, and I think this has helped me massively as now it’s simply (simply) a case of getting from the front to the back and adding/changing data whose properties I’ve already determined.
I’m going to post more detailed stuff so I can learn from people on here and engage in general in the topic more.
If anyone has any questions or suggestions, please comment!