# From Problem to Product: Building AI Recess & Winning SheBuilds Season 01 Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgU4BB22FTM Recap page: https://rapidrecap.app/video/tgU4BB22FTM Generated: 2026-02-13T21:30:53.751+00:00 --- ## Quick Overview Cat Hill Contag secured the B2B win in SheBuilds Season 01 by developing "AI Recess," a platform conceived from her consulting experience identifying the gap between management's desire for AI adoption and team members lacking time or budget to learn, framing the tool as "the Duolingo for learning how to use AI at work." **Key Points:** - Cat Hill Contag, a non-technical founder focused on go-to-market and sales, overcame limiting beliefs to participate in SheBuilds Season 1, which she says "changed my life" and pivoted her career to only consulting for clients wanting to build with Lovable. - The winning product, AI Recess, solves the problem where managers want teams to use AI but team members lack time or budget to experiment, positioning the tool as "the Duolingo for learning how to use AI at work." - Contag highly recommends structuring builds using a Product Requirements Document (PRD), noting that skipping this step for her survey builder cost her three hours of debugging, emphasizing that 30-45 minutes spent on a PRD saves significant time later. - She uses a "PTO framework"—Pain point identification, Time estimation of waste, and User openness to adoption—to decide which problems are worth solving with Lovable, prioritizing tangible, recurring pain points. - Contag advises building a 'vibe coding team' that includes external resources like Claude for debugging assistance and Dribbble for design inspiration, and treating Lovable itself as the fourth team member. - A key technical best practice is utilizing Lovable's 'plan now' button before prompting to save credits and review proposed actions, and if hitting roadblocks, opening a completely new browser session to re-prompt. - The biggest win from the hackathon was the community and learning, not the prize; Contag stresses that builders should not feel obligated to monetize or quit their jobs, as the win can simply be building something useful for oneself or a community. **Context:** The webinar features Lovable Community Manager Whitney Menareek introducing Cat Hill Contag, the B2B winner of SheBuilds Season 1. Cat shares her journey from being a non-technical fractional consultant to winning the hackathon, detailing the process of identifying a build problem, utilizing the Lovable platform, and structuring a successful project within the intense 48-hour competition format. ## Detailed Analysis Cat Hill Contag detailed her transition from being a non-technical founder experienced in sales and go-to-market strategy to becoming an active Lovable community member and SheBuilds Season 1 B2B winner. She emphasized overcoming negative self-talk to apply for the hackathon, despite never having used Lovable. Her winning project, AI Recess, addresses the disconnect between leadership wanting AI adoption and employees lacking time to learn it, functioning as a learning platform for work-related AI skills. Cat introduced the PTO framework (Pain point, Time wasted, User openness) as a critical filter for deciding what to build, warning that just because something can be built on Lovable does not mean it should be built. For structuring builds, she advocates starting every project with a PRD, which she generates using Claude, detailing vision, core features (limiting to MVP essentials), technical architecture, and success criteria; she learned this firsthand after wasting hours debugging a Google Forms competitor built without one. She also stressed the importance of design systems, like the 'neo brutalism' she used for AI Recess, to ensure consistency and professionalism, citing resources like Felix's Substack and Adam Berg's guidance. Post-hackathon, Cat has fully pivoted her consulting work to focus exclusively on Lovable builds, underscoring that the community and learning were the greatest rewards, and she continues to develop AI Recess as a free learning platform. ### SheBuilds Journey and Background - Cat is a three-time founder focused on go-to-market and sales, originally from the Bay Area now in Minneapolis - She started using AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT as thought partners before joining an AI group and applying to SheBuilds despite feeling unqualified. ### Problem Identification and AI Recess - AI Recess solves the managerial problem of encouraging AI use by providing bite-sized learning tasks, comparing the tool to "the Duolingo for learning how to use AI at work" - The idea originated from seeing sales and CS teams struggle to articulate ROI without custom, professional-looking tools. ### The PTO Building Framework - Builders should use PTO to vet ideas: identify the Pain point, Estimate time wasted, and confirm User openness to adopting a new tool - Good candidates involve recurring waste and users actively seeking solutions, like the sales team needing better ROI calculators. ### Vibe Coding Best Practices - Structure is essential; Cat spends the first two hours of any build creating a PRD using Claude to define scope and avoid feature bloat - Key team members include Claude for debugging prompts, Dribbble for design inspiration, and maintaining a dedicated Chrome profile for focused building. ### Design Systems and Structure - Design systems ensure builds look cohesive and professional, speeding up iteration; Cat learned about terms like 'neo brutalism' through community ambassadors and external resources - She uses a simple spreadsheet as a prioritized product roadmap post-hackathon, ranking features by Impact, Urgency, and Ease of implementation. ### Life After Winning - The 48 hours were life-changing, leading Cat to pivot her career to only consult for Lovable clients and find renewed excitement in work - The expectation after winning is not necessarily monetization; the win is learning, community engagement, and building useful tools, as development costs are now low.