On a crowded afternoon at a local museum, Bethany Crystal takes out her phone, snaps a photo of an exhibit and feeds it to ChatGPT with a quick prompt: “explain this like I’m a five-year-old.” After receiving the generated response, she reads it to her two kids. A few months later, she uses the idea to create her first app, MuseKat.
Crystal, who graduated from Medill in 2009, is working for herself as a startup founder and entrepreneur since creating MuseKat in January of 2025. She designed the app without prior coding experience, relying instead on the curiosity and questioning skills she developed at Medill. Through a back-and-forth with ChatGPT and the AI-assisted code editor Cursor, the final product was a fully functional web app starring Miko, a museum meerkat that tells age-tailored audio stories to kids based on photos of exhibits.
“To me, that was this major unlock moment where I finally felt like software and building software was something that could actually be available,” said Crystal. “Even to someone like me who has a journalism degree.”
After receiving many questions about her process of creation, she dug deep into her design-thinking framework — the same approach she credits with helping her, as a non-engineer, build her first app. Today, she teaches the framework to a plethora of companies and individuals through her startup, Build First.
“I’m calling it [Build First] an AI learning lab,” Crystal said. “One of the things I’ve learned this year is that the best way to learn about AI is to start by using it yourself.”
In a world where AI can be met with skepticism, Crystal sees it instead as a tool to empower users. Whether parents need a list of dinners they can make with ingredients in their fridge, or a marketing team needs ways to turn their content into short TikTok videos, she said her goal is to help people become users of software rather than passive consumers.
This is all done through what she calls “AI Power Hours.” In 60 minutes, companies and individuals follow Crystal’s lead in designing, building and launching AI-powered tools. Participants start with a problem that resonates with them, and by the end of the session, they have a tangible, working product.
A typical session starts by guiding the user through a question flow where the problem statement is refined, the outcome is described and any extra details are provided. Then the user can choose whether they want the app to be a website, a text-only chatbot, or an app, with all options generating everything needed to build a basic platform in 60 minutes.
However, Crystal has realized there is more to engaging with AI than typing prompts. Through her Build First sessions and usage of AI, she acquired multiple dimensions she considers when creating. The first, she describes as leaning on apps or experiences that are leading toward creation over consumption — much like her second app, Scribblins, which turns kids’ drawings into printable stickers. The second, she says, is powering experiences that give high agency by promoting collaborative experiences with the real world instead of staying digital.
“When you think of AI as an additional partner,” Crystal said, “it feels like a healthier behavior than some other, more negative consequences.”
She says the idea that anyone can build something without needing to code has completely changed the way she thinks about software. Looking ahead, Crystal believes AI will open the door for others to become builders.
And although Build First currently operates as a service-based teaching platform, her long-term goal is to turn it into “a startup studio for the AI-native entrepreneur.” The vision comes from her experience of building two apps and her curiosity about what it could look like for other possible founders and builders in the AI age.
“I finally feel like anyone can contribute to the architecture and skyline of what the internet looks like, and to me, that’s the biggest unlock that AI is introducing.”