Heard Chiara on a podcast? Welcome. This is the fun stuff: real-life ways to play with AI in the next ten minutes, plus the thrifting app she built.
Chiara sat down with Nina Kolari to talk about building AI Treasure Hunter with no coding background, and what that means for anyone with an idea.
If you came here from the episode, everything she mentioned is on this page: the ten-minute ideas below, a look at how the app works, and the free class if you want to take AI from “fun” to “useful.”
Opens the App Minded podcast site in a new tab.
None of these need a paid plan or a tutorial. Open a free AI chat, paste in a prompt, and see what comes back. Change the details to match your life and it gets better fast.
List what you have, including the sad half-onion, and ask for three dinners you could make tonight. Tell it how much time you have and who is picky.
I have chicken thighs, half an onion, a bag of spinach, eggs, rice, and some cheddar. Give me three dinner ideas I can make in 30 minutes for two adults and a kid who won’t eat anything green.
Give it your child’s name, a favorite animal, and one thing that happened today. Ask for a short story, then let them pick what happens next.
Write a five-minute bedtime story for a six-year-old named Maya who loves otters and lost a tooth today. Make her brave and a little silly. Stop at a cliffhanger and ask her what should happen next.
This is the whole idea behind AI Treasure Hunter. Take a picture of that vase, jacket, or mystery gadget and ask what it is, roughly when it was made, and whether it is worth anything.
Here’s a photo of something I found at a thrift store. What is it, when was it likely made, and what do similar items usually sell for online? Tell me what to check on it before I buy.
Give it your town, your budget, and how far you are willing to drive. Ask for a morning-to-evening plan with one thing you have never done before.
Plan a Saturday for two adults near Richmond, Virginia. Budget is about $60 total, we’ll drive up to 45 minutes, and we like walking, coffee, and used bookstores. Include one thing most locals haven’t tried.
Birthday, retirement, wedding, or the card for a coworker who is leaving. Give it three real details about the person and ask for something warm and short. Then say it in your own words.
Help me write a 60-second toast for my dad’s 70th birthday. He taught me to fish, he tells the same three jokes every Thanksgiving, and he still calls me every Sunday. Warm, a little funny, not cheesy.
Sourdough, chess, guitar chords, how the stock market works. Ask for a beginner’s explanation and one thing you can practice tonight, then ask follow-up questions like you would with a patient friend.
Teach me the very basics of chess openings like I’m a total beginner. Keep it to three ideas, explain why each one matters, and give me one thing to try in my next game.
Was that movie from 1994 or 1996? Is a hot dog a sandwich? Ask for the facts and both sides of the argument, then ask it to pick a winner and explain why.
My family is arguing about whether cereal is a soup. Give me the strongest argument for each side in two sentences each, then pick a winner and defend it like a courtroom lawyer.
Your fantasy football team, the new puppy, your side project, the group chat. Ask for twenty options in different styles, then ask it to riff on the two you like best.
We just adopted a scruffy brown terrier mix who steals socks and sleeps upside down. Give me 20 name ideas: five classic, five funny, five food-themed, five that sound like a tiny old man.
One tip that makes all of these better: when the first answer is only okay, say so. “Shorter.” “Less cheesy.” “Give me three more.” Talking back is the whole trick, and it works the same way at work.
Chiara loves thrifting and got tired of standing in the aisle googling. So she described the app she wanted to Claude, built it in Replit, and kept talking to it until it worked. No coding background, no developer, just a clear idea and a lot of “not quite, try this.”
Have an idea of your own? The same approach works for a lot more than thrifting. It is the kind of thing we talk through in the free Intro to AI class.
