One designer + AI = 10 shipped products
How I built a profitable theme business as a solo founder using AI-assisted design and development workflows
10 themes
shipped in 18 months
-70%
dev time
1,000+
customers globally
4.8 ★
average rating
Problem
The challenge
The Ghost theme market was saturated with magazine and news templates - polished for big pulication teams, not individual creators.
Writers, designers, and creators needed something different:
- Content-first layouts that let their work shine, not flashy landing pages
- Flexible foundations they could customize without code
- Minimal, sophisticate sites that enhance their online presence
I saw an opportunity to serve this underserved segment, but as a solo founder with limited coding knowldge, I needed to ship faster than traditional design-development cycles would allow.
Process
The AI-assisted approach
Instead of hiring a team, I built a workflow that paired human judgment with AI execution - letting me maintain design quality while dramatically increasing output.
Market research
Analyzed 50+ Ghost themes and community discussions on Reddit and forums. Identified a consistent gap: creators wanted minimal, personal designs focused on writing over feature bloat.
Design decisions
All visual choices made by me - typography, spacing, layout, color systems, hierarchy. AI can't replace design intuition. My role: define the aesthetic and user experience.
Development with Claude Code
Described component behavior in plain language, received working code. Iterated through conversation, changed design directly in code. Result: 70% reduction in front-end development time.
Customer feedback and iteration
Built in conversation with users. Direct email feedback shaped feature priorities, typography choices, and layout options. Each theme evolved through real-world usage - not assumptions.
Content and visuals at scale
Every theme ships with documentation, demo content, and setup guides - generated by Claude, customized for each theme. Hero images and marketing assets created with Midjourney.
Distribution through Ghost Marketplace
All 10 themes are featured on Ghost's official marketplace - where most sales originate. Design quality made my themes stand out.
AI removed the bottlenecks around my skills. I spent more time on what matters - understanding users, making design decisions, listening to feedback - and less time on implementation friction.
Products
The collection
Each theme solves a specific use case while sharing the same quality foundation.
Rand
For writers who want to look seriously professional
Paul Rand-inspired minimal aesthetic with customizable sections for personal branding. The flexibility to grow your brand without changing themes.
Vincent
For writers crafting long-form articles
Professional editorial design for art, culture, history, technology, or lifestyle content. Strong visual hierarchy, beautiful post layouts.
Enjin
For startup teams who need to publish without friction
Progressive blur depth effects, instant category filtering, timeline page for changelogs. Ship updates fast.
Naoto
For designers and developers building personal sites
Modular, minimal, infinitely flexible. 15+ sections that mix-and-match without code. Portfolio, blog, link-in-bio, timeline - all in one theme.
Details
Behind the scenes
AI didn't just accelerate my workflow - it enabled features I couldn't have built alone.
AI-assisted theme features
- Dynamic color extraction from images
- Immersive scroll-based text effects
- Features that would have required a team, delivered solo
Custom optimization tooling
Developed a macOS asset optimizer that automatically resizes, converts, and compresses multiple images at once.
Content and documentation
Every theme ships with comprehensive setup guides, demo blog posts, and usage examples - all generated by Claude and customized for each theme's use case.
Visual assets with Midjourney
Created hero images, marketing visuals, and theme previews that matched each theme's aesthetic.
Results
Impact
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Themes shipped | 10 in 18 months |
| Customers | 1,000+ globally |
| Development speed | 70% faster with AI |
| Average rating | 4.8/5 stars |
| Marketplace | All themes are featured in Ghost Marketplace |
| Ship cycle | 4-6 weeks per theme |
What this proves
A solo designer with AI tools can ship at the pace of a small team - without sacrificing quality. The 4.8★ rating shows that speed didn't come at the cost of craft.
What customers say
★★★★★
“Amazing theme for those looking for a dashboard experience for their users. Very well organized and the developers are quick to fix any issues that come up. Highly recommend!”
— Jaren
★★★★★
“Kyoto is an impressive theme, ingeniously constructed and 100% adapted to Ghost, and Trong's support is Olympic-level.”
— Víctor Millán
★★★★★
“I was hunting around for a theme that had strong navigation to surface some of the content I had - and Braun had the combination of clean design, and strong CMS features. The design and feel of the site is absolutely what I was aiming for. ”
— Matt Rutherford
Reflection
Takeaways
AI changes the designer's role, not replaces it.
Prototypes ship faster. Documentation isn't an afterthought. But the designer's judgment about what to build becomes the competitive advantage.
The themes that sold best solved specific user problems elegantly
Not the most technically impressive ones. Understanding users matters more than implementation speed.
Shipping mentality matters.
Real user feedback beats internal polish. This bias toward action helped me learn faster and build better.
I'm looking to bring these AI-assisted workflows to a team where I can apply them at larger scale.