How I Built a Personalized Children's Book Business with AI
A behind-the-scenes look at building Small Tales — from the first prototype to a live product generating real revenue.
The Idea
I wanted to build a business that combined AI with something tangible — something people could hold in their hands. Personalized children's books felt like the perfect intersection: AI could generate beautiful illustrations, and print-on-demand services could handle fulfillment.
The Stack
Small Tales is built with:
- Next.js 16 for the frontend and API routes
- Supabase for the database and file storage
- Leonardo.ai for AI image generation
- Stripe for payments
- Gelato for print-on-demand fulfillment
- Inngest for background job processing
What I Learned
Building a solo AI business is equal parts technical challenge and business operations. The code is maybe 40% of the work — the rest is marketing, customer support, legal setup, and constant iteration.
Want to Learn How?
I'm creating a comprehensive course that walks through every step of building Small Tales from scratch. Sign up for the course to be notified when it launches.
Build your own version
Small Tales is open source and no longer maintained. Fork the code and make it your own.
Fork on GitHub