Welcome
You're in.
This is the first issue of Early Build — a weekly letter for people who ship things.
No fluff. No corporate speak. Just the tools, trends, and tactics that matter when you're building at the frontier.
What you'll get every week:
What shipped (the stuff actually worth your attention)
What to build with it (copy-paste examples)
Signal from the ecosystem (where the energy is)
One experiment to try before next issue
Who this is for:
Developers building side projects that might become real things
Technical creators shipping tutorials, courses, or content
Builders who love the craft of making software
People who'd rather ship proof than pitch decks
If that's you, you're in the right place.
Hit reply anytime. We read every response.
Now let's get into what shipped this week.
🌎 What Shipped: The Week in AI
Anthropic launches $100M Claude Partner Network — Training consultancies (Accenture, Deloitte) to deploy Claude in enterprises. Same playbook Microsoft used with Azure. If you're building B2B AI tools, consider becoming an implementation partner.
Claude shares context across Excel + PowerPoint — Upload both files to one session, Claude references spreadsheet data when editing slides. New "Skills" feature saves custom workflows. Cuts 30-50% off deck-updating time for consultants.
LangChain announces Deep Agents + NVIDIA partnership — Production framework for autonomous agents with retry logic, error handling, and observability. Optimized for NVIDIA GPUs (3-5x latency improvement). Worth evaluating if you're building custom AI workflows.
Google Gemini API gets tool combination + Maps grounding — Chain multiple tools in one request (search → extract → save). Real-time Maps data for location-aware apps. Finally competitive for app developers.
"I've never felt this much behind as a programmer. The profession is being dramatically refactored as the bits contributed by the programmer are increasingly sparse and between. I have a sense that I could be 10X more powerful."
⌨️ Builder Stack: What to Try in 2026
What devs are actually using in 2026:
Frontend: Next.js still wins. 87% of top React sites use it. One developer put it perfectly: "Next.js is the default because every AI tool was trained on Next.js. You describe what you want and it just works."
Backend: Supabase won the startup backend category. Free tier handles ~$5K MRR before you need to think about scaling. One bioinformatics PhD built a $1K MRR SaaS with zero web dev experience: "Everything is AI-generated. I can't write React. But I shipped."
The real pattern for 2026:
Start with Next.js + Supabase
Add Stripe when you need payments
Deploy on Vercel
Zero DevOps for the first 12-18 months
What to skip: Don't build auth from scratch. Don't maintain a component library. Don't self-host vector DBs "for learning." Ship first, optimize when users force you to.
If you're starting a side project this week: Boring where it matters, modern where it helps
🔧 Infrastructure Worth Knowing: Gemini Multi-Tool Chaining
Google dropped a quiet update on March 17 that simplifies agent architectures.
What changed: You can now combine Gemini's built-in tools (Google Search, Maps, YouTube, Flights) with your own custom functions in a single API call.
Before: orchestrate each step separately (fetch data, process, call your backend).
Now: Gemini handles the whole flow in one request.
resp client.generate_content(
model="gemini-2.5-pro",
tools=[google_search, google_maps, your_booking_function],
enable_cTrue # tool outputs persist for follow-ups
)
Why it matters: reduces latency, simplifies agent code, and cuts token usage. If you're building travel, real estate, or local discovery apps, test this.
Pricing: Gemini 2.5 Pro at $1.25/$10, Flash at $0.30/$2.50, Flash-Lite at $0.10/$0.40 (with free tier on most models).
📊 Ecosystem Signal: Follow the VC Money
Nearly 50% of all developer tool VC went to AI-focused companies in 2025. The thesis shifted:
2024: "Copilots" that assist developers
2026: "Digital teammates" that plan, debug, and deploy autonomously
Data points:
Anysphere (Cursor) raised $2.3B Series D
Cognition (Devin) seeing similar traction
Gartner: 40% of enterprise apps will integrate task-specific AI agents by end of 2026 (up from under 5% a year ago)
Where the gap is: AI Observability and Security.
When AI writes 41% of all code (early 2026 stat), you need AI defenders watching. 85% of orgs plan LLM observability, only 8% have finished implementation.
If you're thinking about what to build next, that's an opening.
🛠️ Ship This Week: Multi-Model Comparison Dashboard
The idea: Build a simple tool that routes the same prompt to GPT-5.4, Claude Sonnet 4.6, Gemini 2.5, and DeepSeek V3.2 — then returns all responses side-by-side with cost tracking.
Why: You'll quickly learn which models punch above their weight for your workloads. Most teams overpay for capability they don't use.
Stack:
Next.js + Vercel AI SDK (supports all providers out of the box)
Simple prompt input + 4-column output grid
Track cost per response (use the pricing data above)
Optional: Add voting so users can pick the best response
Time: 2-4 hours for a working MVP
Ship it: Post on Twitter/X, tag us, we'll amplify the best ones
🔗 Links Worth Clicking
GPT-5.4 Announcement — Full benchmark breakdown from OpenAI
Claude Sonnet 4.6 — Why users prefer it over Opus 4.5
Cursor Pricing Explained — Credit system deep dive
Gemini Multi-Tool Update — Official announcement
Builder prompt: "What can I ship in 100 lines that saves someone 10 hours?"
Before You Go
You're building at the frontier. We're here to keep you first to know, first to build.
What are you shipping this week? Hit reply.
Love,
The Early Build Crew