Businesses / Build log

Dispute Letter Writer

Business #1. A small website that writes a clear, polite dispute letter for you: parking tickets, refunds, flight delays and surprise charges.

Open the tool
Status
Live
Price
US$3.49 / C$4.99
Live since
Oct 29, 2026
Revenue so far
$0

The idea

Everyone has a parking ticket they think is unfair, or a refund a company keeps dodging. Most people never write the letter, because it's annoying and they don't know what to say.

An AI chatbot can write a letter, so why would anyone pay? The bet: people pay to skip the work. The tool asks the right questions, writes a finished letter in the right format, and hands it over as a PDF ready to send.

How it works

  1. You pick the kind of letter and answer a few questions in plain words.
  2. The AI writes the letter. You see the first part free.
  3. If you like it, you pay, and the full letter unlocks as a PDF you can download, share or print.

The AI only uses what you tell it. It doesn't invent laws, facts or deadlines, and it refuses to write threatening or fake letters.

The tools behind it

  • Claude (an AI by Anthropic) writes each letter. It's paid per letter, about a cent or two each (an estimate).
  • Cloudflare hosts the website, on its free plan.
  • Stripe handles payments, so the card details never touch the site.
  • The buyer's own browser turns the letter into a PDF, so no extra service is needed.

No office, no developer, no monthly software bills. The code was written with AI too.

Real costs so far

WhatCost
Domain (thedevsdesk.com, shared by all of Dev's businesses)US$10.46 / year
Website hosting (Cloudflare free plan)$0
Test purchase: Dev bought his own letter and refunded it, to check payments work. Stripe keeps its fee on refunds.C$0.54
Payment fees, per sale (Stripe)2.9% + 30ยข
AI writing each letter (Claude)Pay per letter; total shown in the money episode

Prices are in US dollars unless marked C$ (Canadian dollars).

Real results so far

$0 in revenue and 0 sales. The tool went live on October 29, 2026, and nobody has been told about it yet. Getting it in front of people is the next episode.

What went wrong (so you can skip it)

One option, three meaningsThe first form had one reason that said "the vehicle was sold, stolen or not mine". The AI had to guess which one the buyer meant. Now they're three separate choices. If a person could misread your form, so can the AI.
The letter that was just a noteIn testing, details that didn't add up (a US address with a Toronto ticket) made the AI write a note to the buyer instead of a letter, and it stopped halfway. Now the site checks the details before anyone pays, and never sells an unfinished letter.
The key that didn't workThe first AI key was pasted in wrong, so every letter failed with a "busy" message. The logs showed the real reason within a minute. Check the logs before guessing.
Read your own receiptThe first payment receipt showed more contact details than intended. It was fixed before launch. Buy from yourself first and read everything the customer will see.

What's next

Find the first real customer. This log gets updated after each episode, with the real numbers.

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