This week I built an entire IT ticketing system in 15 minutes. Not because I needed the practice, but because I was genuinely angry at a vendor quote. Sometimes spite is the best motivator for a good build.

The quote was $4860.00 in project fees plus $922.26 in monthly subscription fees. For what? A form that creates tickets and sends emails. I could build that faster than it would take to read their terms of service.

So I did. Fifteen minutes later I had a working system that does exactly what we need. No monthly fees, no user limits, no vendor lock-in. Just a simple tool that solves the actual problem.

This is what happens when you stop accepting "that's just how much software costs" as an answer. Most business software is overpriced because most business owners don't realize how simple their actual needs are and how AI can now save them thousands per year.

Stick around to the end, I have a free prompt guide down below if you want to try something like this.

My day job uses a managed ServiceNow instance through an MSP. I asked for two simple changes: rename some dropdown fields and add more options to existing categories. Basic stuff that takes maybe 20 minutes if you know what you're doing.

The MSP came back after a month with a quote. $5,000 project fee plus $950 monthly subscription increase. For renaming fields.

I've made these exact changes in ServiceNow before. I know they're not complex. But rather than argue with the vendor, I decided to build my own ticketing system from scratch.

I used Claude Sonnet 4.6 on Max Effort to craft a very detailed prompt. I specified everything: React frontend, Node.js backend, SQLite database, ticket management, knowledge base, simulated user directory. The whole works. Then I fed that prompt to Claude Cowork running the brand new Claude Fable 5 model.

After 15 minutes, I had a 95% complete application.

The system handles ticket creation with cascading categories, troubleshooting notes, resolution tracking, and a dashboard view. It even came with pre-seeded sample tickets and knowledge base articles. The only missing piece was connecting real user data, which requires proper approvals anyway.

My team is interested enough that we're repurposing an old server to test it properly. There are real questions about long-term maintenance, security updates, and dependency management. But the potential savings are massive for a municipal budget.

The takeaway: when vendors price gouge for simple work, building your own solution might be faster than negotiating. And tools like Claude Cowork make this totally accessible to all AI users.

Anthropic Launches Fable 5 at Half the Cost

Anthropic released Fable 5, their most capable AI model yet, at less than half the price of previous versions. The model handled a 50-million-line codebase migration for Stripe in one day. The price drop changes the economics of running AI agents for full days or longer.

Joe's Read: Small businesses can now afford AI automation that runs overnight or across weekends without breaking the budget, but you don’t have a lot of time. Anthropic is only keeping Fable available on the paid Pro and Max tiers until June 22nd 2026, then they make it API only. (or so they say…)

OpenAI's Codex Sites Turns Static Files Into Live AI-Powered Team Tools

OpenAI's new Codex Sites platform transforms static files into interactive, AI-powered applications that teams can share and update. Instead of emailing around spreadsheets or PDFs, you turn them into live dashboards the whole team can access. The platform takes quick demo apps and makes them functional software.

Joe's Read: This is a direct competition to tools like Lovable and Replit. Small teams stuck passing around Excel files or static reports can now create shared tools without hiring developers. But you'll need someone comfortable with basic coding to set it up.

Google for Startups Launches Agentic AI Startup School

Google for Startups launched a training program for founders to build AI agents beyond basic chatbots. The program covers customer intelligence solutions, deploying AI on Google Cloud, and using Gemini Live voice AI. It's aimed at startups and small teams wanting AI automation without the usual enterprise complexity.

Joe's Read: Small business owners who want to build AI systems but don't know where to start now have structured training. It's free, but you'll need time to complete the coursework. Skip the Netflix binge and jump on this training.

Google's NotebookLM

Google expanded NotebookLM to handle textbooks as sources, not just PDFs. This matters if you do research or need to reference multiple book sources for your work.

The tool can now pull from actual textbooks and create those audio podcast summaries it's known for. If you're a consultant, coach, or anyone who synthesizes information from books, this saves hours of manual note-taking.

I've used NotebookLM for client research. Being able to feed it a business book and get a 20-minute audio summary while I'm driving is useful.

The expansion means less switching between formats when you're building knowledge bases or preparing materials.

Link: https://notebooklm.google.com

The most interesting part wasn't the 15-minute build time. It was the conversation afterward about what this means long-term. My team immediately started asking the right questions: what happens when something breaks? How do we handle security updates? Who maintains it in five years?

These aren't deal-breakers, they're planning requirements. AI can document everything it builds, create help files, even power a troubleshooting chatbot. The tools exist to make custom systems maintainable.

The real shift is psychological. Building your own solution went from 'impossible unless you're a developer' to 'possible if you can write a good prompt.' That changes how you evaluate vendor pricing.

What surprised me the most about this experiment with Claude Fable 5 is that each new model is providing exponential improvements since we were first able to use AI to design tools or artifacts for us.

When this first started, you would get something maybe about 70% of the way there. It's a very consistent improvement. It's getting to 75%, 80%. 90%, and now, in this case, 95%.

This is lessening the barrier to entry for when you have an idea and you want to quickly prove it out.

So to give you a head start, I created this free prompt guide.

It doesn't just give you the prompt that I used to create this psudo-ticketing system, it shows and explains to you the framework. So even if you don't want to create a tool similar to mine, you will at least get the building blocks that you can customize for the project you have in mind.

n8n — The automation tool I use to connect apps, trigger workflows, and stop doing things manually. If there's a repetitive process in your business, this is where you start fixing it.

VoiceInk — A local AI dictation tool for Mac that transcribes your voice with near-perfect accuracy and runs entirely on your device, meaning nothing you say ever touches a cloud server.

Blotato — Handles the full content distribution side of your business: drop in a topic and it generates platform-specific posts, or feed it existing content and it repurposes it across formats. TikTok videos become tweets, podcasts become blog posts. Includes a scheduling calendar, visual creation tools for carousels and infographics, and publishes natively to 9 platforms with no per-post fees.

Beehiiv — What you're reading right now is published on Beehiiv. If you're thinking about starting a newsletter or moving off a clunky platform, this is the one I'd recommend. 20% off your first 3 months with my link.

Google Workspace — Beyond email and Docs, a Business Standard plan includes Gemini Pro built into every app, NotebookLM Plus, and access to the enterprise versions of the whole suite. Better value than a standalone Gemini subscription when you're already paying for Google anyway. 14-day trial and 10% off your first year.

Descript — Video and podcast editing that works like a text document. You edit the transcript and the media follows. Cuts filler words, cleans up audio, and handles captions automatically. 50% off your first two months on the Creator Plan.

Vendor lock-in works because switching feels impossible. But when you can prototype a replacement in 15 minutes, the negotiation changes completely. You're not trapped by their timeline or their pricing anymore.

Free resources here.

PS: If you want a custom system built without the vendor markup, book a discovery call and we'll build the solution together in a live session.

Cheers,
Joe