I co-founded a gaming startup called Mega Bad Crew. The team spent years building a prototype. When it ended, I kept the idea in the back of my head.
On January 6, I sat down with Claude Code and rebuilt that prototype in about an hour. Not a sketch. Not a mockup. A working game. Something that had taken a team of four people years of work.
I knew immediately this was different from anything I'd ever seen. Not because of what the tool could do in isolation. Because of what it let me do. I'm not an engineer. I'm a revenue leader who sells, operates, and builds companies. But suddenly I could build software across every domain of my life.
That was two months ago. I have over 20 projects now. Not experiments. Not hello-worlds. Shipped products that people use.
Started
January 6, 2026
Projects
20+
Domains
Games, ops, editorial, sales, family
Stack
Claude Code + Anthropic API
Not a portfolio of toy apps. Real tools solving real problems across completely different domains. The breadth is the point.
Full marketing and publishing operations for a Steam strategy game. Creator campaigns, storefront optimization, analytics dashboards, automated reporting. Solo operator managing the entire vertical.
YouTube and Twitch analytics tool that identifies creator overlap with target gaming communities. Surfaces the best fits for influencer campaigns using real viewership data.
Sales pipeline tools for my dad's industrial valve business. Market research, contact intelligence, call sheets, territory analysis, and a live dashboard tracking opportunities across Georgia's data center construction boom.
Two-person game dev project with a former Mega Bad Crew engineer. Browser-based action game approaching public launch. Stage system, particle effects, custom audio pipeline.
Play it →A real-time multiplayer party game built for Mechabellum community events. WebSocket server, lobby system, spectator mode. Designed to run live during tournaments.
The project that started it all. January 6, 2026. Rebuilt the Mega Bad Crew cat game prototype in about an hour. Something that took a team of four years of development. That was the moment everything changed.
A writing tool built for a freelance writer. Articles, blurbs, copy edits, proofing. Tuned to a specific brand voice and style guide. Publication-ready output.
A repeatable workflow for writing anything that needs to be in someone's voice. The human writes raw, Claude challenges structure and arguments, the human rewrites. Three passes to done. Used for every case study on this site.
A life archive for my family. Memories, relationships, daily rhythms, stories worth keeping. Python, Claude API, WebSocket. CLI, real-time dashboard, conversational orchestrator, daily planning. Built for my sons.
Press one button, get a restaurant. Character-driven food discovery app with live Google Places integration, cooking animations, and personality. Live at bennichol.com/imfeelinghungry.
Try it →This site. Next.js, Vercel, Anthropic API. A portfolio with a Claude-powered chatbot that knows Ben's full story. The site is the proof of concept.
Cross-project coordination system. Registry of all active projects, priority scoring, session routing. The command center that keeps 20+ concurrent projects from collapsing into chaos.
HTML slide decks built from scratch. Animation-rich, responsive, designed for live delivery. Custom aesthetic system with its own color palette and typography rules.
Building 20+ projects as one person requires more than a good tool. It requires a system.
A cross-project coordination system. Every project has a registry entry, a priority score, and a state snapshot. When I start a session, the system loads context for the right project and routes me to the highest-priority work. No time wasted figuring out where I left off.
A repeatable writing workflow. I write raw. Claude challenges the structure, flags weak arguments, pushes back on vague claims. I rewrite. Three passes max. Every case study on this site was written this way. The human voice stays. The quality goes up.
Claude builds the first pass from an outline. I review with terse feedback. Fix this, move that, cut this section. Three rounds to something shippable. The key is not being precious about first drafts.
Every project has a CLAUDE.md with conventions, pitfalls, and architecture notes. Every project has a MEMORY.md that persists across sessions. Claude doesn't start from zero. It starts from where we left off.
The chatbot on the homepage of this site is built with the Anthropic API. It knows my full professional story. It can tell you about my career, my projects, my family, my beliefs. It handles follow-up questions. It detects who's asking and adjusts tone.
This page exists on a portfolio site I designed and built with Claude Code. The case studies were written using my creative collaboration process. The project catalog above is a live inventory of what I've shipped.
I didn't write a page about why I use Claude. I built a portfolio that demonstrates it. You're looking at the proof.
I'm not an engineer by training. I have 14 years of experience selling, operating, and building teams. I've closed eight-figure deals, produced hundreds of events, co-founded a company, and managed multi-million dollar P&Ls.
What changed on January 6 is that I could suddenly do all of that AND build the tools to support it. Revenue leader who also ships product. Seller who can do a live demo from their own portfolio. Operator who builds their own dashboards.
That combination is rare. And it's the direct result of what Claude makes possible.