I'm often asked what tools I recommend for getting started building with AI, so here's the quick overview of what Sterling Road portfolio founders use.

1. Getting Started

If you're prototyping or building with AI for the first time, Replit is a great place to start. There, you can build an app in minutes and get it live, it's very satisfying.

2. Coding Tools

For bigger projects, most Sterling Road founders use Claude Code with some using ChatGPT Codex for debugging. Cursor is also used but that has declined recently since Claude Code's ascent.

3. Deployment

Vercel is by far the most popular option, though AWS and Google Cloud are sometimes mentioned. Microsoft Azure only seems to come up when people are hunting for credits.

Best of luck out there.