US-Based Product Manager Creates Postcard App Using AI, Grows It Into Business

A product manager, who is also a content creator, built a working postcard app in four hours with the help of AI tools. This exciting side project is apparently picking up and helping her earn some extra cash.

During a conversation with Business Insider, Priscilla Tina said that she has been doing creative side hustles and experiments for a very long time.

"Last November, I sat down and built an app with Claude Code that sends postcards without dealing with stamps or delivery," the 28-year-old said as quoted.

The idea came from a familiar frustration, which was sending physical postcards while travelling. The San Francisco-based techie said that it feels good, but buying stamps and finding mailboxes abroad is a hassle.

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Instead of shelving the thought, she decided to test it. "We're spending a lot of time brainrotting, looking at a lot of AI slop. We're realizing that spending all our time on our phones isn't very meaningful," she said as quoted.

"We're also finding out that you can connect a lot better when socializing in person, and that there is value in going back to the old joys of life. I wanted to bridge the divide between the digital and the physical world and help connect people."

She described the core features of Postcard Press in plain language: let users upload a photo, a message, and other details. It then connects to a service called Postgrid that looks after printing and delivery.

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The AI produced a functional web app, stitched together a payment flow, and generated the UI. Manual tweaking focused on polishing the design and testing the order flow.

"When I shared it with other product managers at the conference, they asked me when it was ready to go, saying they wanted to send their friends postcards for Christmas. That gave me intel that people were excited about it," she said.

"Since I launched it in December, more than 100 postcards have been sent through Postcard Press, each costing about $2. Postgrid's services cost $0.82, and Stripe charges $0.30 per card, so I'm honestly not making much profit per card."

"I know I could move to a subscription model if revenue were the goal, but it's really not why I built this app to begin with."