How I started building apps next to my shop

I always had ideas for apps. Nothing big. Practical things. An app to manage my hockey team's lineup. A scoring system for the matches we play after training. A tournament planner that works without everyone needing an account.

I tried learning to code. Multiple times. Tutorials, courses, picked up the basics. But between running an e-commerce shop and coaching hockey twice a week, I never got far enough to actually finish something.

Then AI tools got good enough.

What changed

I didn't become a developer. Let me be honest about that. But the distance between having an idea and a working app got a lot shorter. I could describe what I wanted and something usable came back. Not perfect. Not finished. But a starting point I could work with.

The first thing I built was King of the Pitch. I coach my daughter's team and we end every training with a small match. The problem: same kids always end up on the same team. I wanted an app that balances teams automatically based on previous results.

It was called Queen of the Pitch first — girls' hockey.

Why this feels different

I've been running an e-commerce shop for years. Customers, shipping, marketing — I know that. But building apps is fundamentally different. With e-commerce you sell someone else's product. With an app you make something that didn't exist before.

The moment someone uses something you built and it just works — that feels different from an order coming in. When a coach at my club said the team balancing was actually useful, that was worth more than a good sales day.

Where I am now

King of the Pitch has been submitted to the App Store. Waiting for Apple's review. TeamHockey — lineups, substitutions, attendance — is running in beta via TestFlight. Coaches at my club are testing it and giving feedback. Meanwhile I'm working on the next ideas.

That's the nice thing about multiple projects: they're in different phases. One is waiting for review, another is being tested, and another I'm still building. There's always something to work on.

What this blog is for

I want to document this process. Not as a guide — I don't know enough for that. More as notes from someone who is figuring it out. What works. What doesn't. What surprises me.

If you're in a similar position — ideas but no technical background — maybe there's something recognizable here.