Physician Forge
BuildForge
A book on building side projects that replace your W-2.
Last updated: 14 Sep 2026. Continuously updated — PDF and skill pack regenerate together.
Mindset for shipping while you still have a W-2, then the agent build path I actually use — Cursor, a VPS, DNS, costs, Discord for communities, and the security checklist you forget until something breaks.
By Drew Albert ·@drewalbertmd
What’s inside
Eighteen chapters. Mindset first (1–10), then build with an agent (11–18). Free ship logs on/building/ stay public; this is the curated ladder + prompts.
Mindset
1. TL;DR
Whole game: ideas → scope → structure → charge → automate → launch → grow → build with an agent → don’t skip the ops checklist.
2. Why build side projects as a surgeon?
W-2 leverage and financial freedom. I write from surgery; the reader is any high-income builder in the same spot.
3. Coming up with ideas
Start from your own problems. Micro-niche first. Not AI-wrapper hunting.
4. Sticking with scope and focus
One job per product. Agents overbuild — you cut.
5. Basic structure to build
What a side-project repo looks like before features: folders, one stack, env vs code, local → server.
6. How to be okay with charging money
Ask early. Prefer paid from day one. Ideally no free tiers.
7. Automate
Bots and scripts only when time saved wins. What not to automate.
8. Example projects
Case-study tour of PF-shaped builds. Points forward to the build half.
9. Launch
Ship early. Post where your audience already is. Friendly tone — payment works.
10. Distribution and Grow
After launch day: keep showing up. Link graph. Organic compound.
Build with an agent
11. Cursor when you don’t code
Download, one folder, Agent vs Ask vs Plan, first-win prompts.
12. Rent a VPS + SSH into Cursor
Hetzner, SSH keys, Remote-SSH, pasteable prompts.
13. DNS the agent can edit
Cloudflare API so the agent can point the name at the box.
14. Agent-native + MCP
Shape products agents can use — tools, docs, MCP.
15. Analytics that survive deploys
First-party stats. DB outside dist/. Backups that outlive rsync --delete.
16. Costs — what you actually pay
VPS, domain, Cloudflare, LLM APIs, Stripe fees. Kill SaaS middlemen when you can own the pipe.
17. Discord bot to run communities
One bot that runs the room — membership roles, Grok /ask, after you have something to gather people around.
18. Security, Cloudflare, Git, and the checklist
Secrets, TLS, backups, deploy that can’t wipe data, remotes, robots/llms.txt — don’t ship without this.