Good morning!

Hope you had a great weekend.

Me personally?

I spent most of mine on the couch…with a fever.

But even while feeling terrible, I was still able to be pretty productive thanks to AI.

I Built A News App For Our Local Community While I Had A Fever

While sitting on the couch feeling sick, I built a full-stack local news platform for Jacksonville.

This app automatically pulls local Jacksonville news, weather, crime data, and community info in real time and organizes everything into one clean, easy-to-use platform.

Why did I build this?

Honestly, it started as a personal tool.

I was tired of jumping between 8 different websites just to see what's happening in my city.

News on one site. Weather on another. Crime reports somewhere else. Events scattered all over.

It was annoying.

So I thought: "What if I could pull all of this into one place?"

And then I realized, if I want this, my friends, family, and neighbors probably want it too.

So I built it over the weekend.

Now I have a tool I can use daily, and I can share it with the people I care about so they stay informed without the hassle.

It’s Much More Powerful Than Your Regular News App

Here's what it does:

1. News aggregation from 8+ Jacksonville sources
   It automatically pulls articles from local news sites and displays them in one feed. No more clicking through multiple tabs.

2. Real-time crime map
   This is the coolest feature. It pulls live data from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and shows recent crimes on an interactive map. No other local news site in Jacksonville has this.
   

3. Weather updates with hurricane alerts

   Living in Florida means hurricanes are a real concern. This app gives live weather updates with automatic alerts for tropical storms and hurricanes.
   

4. Business directory

   A searchable list of local Jacksonville businesses, organized by category. Business owners can even claim their listing and add their info.
   

5. Events calendar 

   Community members can submit local events, and admins can approve them before they go live. Great for staying connected to what's happening around town.
   

6. 15 neighborhood pages

   Each major Jacksonville neighborhood gets its own page with localized content.

   So if you live in Riverside, you see Riverside-specific news, events, and info.

7. User accounts and comments

   People can create accounts, leave comments, and engage with the community.

8. Admin dashboard

   I can manage everything from one place — approve events, moderate comments, update content, etc.

Use Cases For This App

Like I said, this started out as a personal project for myself…

Then I thought of sharing it with some friends, family, and a few neighbors.

But as I was building it, I started thinking about how this could actually make money.

Here are a few ideas I came up with:

1. Share it with the broader Jacksonville community
   Make it the go-to source for Jacksonville info. The more people use it, the more valuable it becomes.

2. Charge a small subscription

   So users get premium features like:
   

   • Ad-free browsing

   • Exclusive alerts (like crime notifications for your neighborhood)

   • Early access to events or special content

3. Sell ad space to local businesses
   Once there's traffic, local businesses would probably pay to get featured on the platform. Think sponsored posts, banner ads, or promoted business listings.

4. Build it up and sell it

   If the platform gets enough users and traction, I could sell it to a larger media company or investor. Local news platforms with active communities are valuable.

Tools I used to build this (and the cost)

Here's what I used:

• Claude for generating prompts, logic, and planning

• Lovable for building the actual app (no coding required)

• Free data sources for news, crime stats, weather, and events

Total operating cost: Under $75 per month

That includes hosting, APIs, and tool subscriptions.

That's it.

No developers. No huge budget. Just me, AI, and a weekend.

I've already shared how to do this

If you want to build something like this yourself, I wrote a simple step-by-step guide on how to build apps with Lovable in one of my previous newsletters.

Go check that out if you're interested by clicking here»

It walks you through the whole process.

The Broader Implication of This For You As a Business Owner Or CEO

I built this app for under $75 a month over a weekend… while I had a fever.

If I can do that, you can too.

Here's why this matters:

As a business owner or CEO, you're constantly looking for ways to solve problems faster, create new revenue streams, and build tools that make your life easier.

AI lets you do all of that across every part of your business.

Not just app building.

Need to analyze customer data? AI can do it in minutes instead of hours.

Want to write better marketing emails? AI drafts them for you.

Need to automate scheduling, invoicing, or customer support? AI handles it.

Planning a new product launch? AI helps you research competitors, write copy, design mockups, and even build landing pages.

In a broader sense, this is what AI is doing for us as business owners AI isn't just a productivity hack. It's changing the game entirely.

Before AI, getting things done meant one of two options:

• Do it yourself — which takes forever and pulls you away from running your business

• Hire someone — which costs money, takes time to manage, and still might not get done right

Now? You can handle tasks in minutes instead of days.

You can test ideas without hiring a team.

You can move from concept to execution faster than ever.

That means:

• Faster execution — test ideas, launch campaigns, or solve problems in days instead of months

• Lower costs — no need to hire specialists for every little task

• More control — you own the process and can make changes instantly

• More opportunities — you're not bottlenecked by what you personally know how to do

This levels the playing field.

Because right now you just need an idea and the willingness to try.

And that’s powerful.

Talk soon.

Brian