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🧠 Objective

Mission: use AI tools to build a real landing page for your fictional startup.

The setup and recommendations below are a suggested path for completing this challenge — teams are free to use any tools and IDEs they prefer. The end goal is simple: ship a creative landing page for your startup.

Be creative. Generate logos. Generate images and videos and embed them in your page. Create games or activities. Make it memorable.

⚡ Open your IDE (Cursor or similar) 🤖 Use AI agents (Cline, RooCode, etc.) to prompt and generate 🛠 Build, preview, tweak, regenerate 🔁 Iterate instead of debating 👥 Collaborate — one prompts, one reviews, one refines

Push the AI. Break things. Ask for improvements. Try bold prompts. This is about experimenting with AI-assisted building and seeing how far your team can go by prompting, iterating, and refining — fast.

👥 Team Structure (3–5 People)

Assign roles quickly (these are just a starting point—feel free to swap, combine, or invent new ones):

  • Prompt Architect – Crafts and tweaks prompts for the AI
  • Builder – Operates the IDE and implements changes
  • Product Lead – Focuses the team on messaging and what makes your project useful
  • Designer (optional) – Refines layout, colors, and overall looks

Tip: Rotate roles every round (round robin style), so everyone gets a turn prompting, building, and reviewing. This way, each team member can experience every part of the process, and ideas flow from all directions.

One laptop per team minimum.

🛠️ Tools Powering Your Build


HTML is the foundational structure of every website. It defines the content and layout of a page — things like headings, paragraphs, buttons, and sections. Think of it as the skeleton of a webpage: it organizes what appears on the screen, but not how it looks.

Tailwind is a CSS framework that controls how your HTML looks — spacing, colors, fonts, layout, and responsiveness. Instead of writing custom CSS, you use small utility classes directly in your HTML (like text-4xl, p-8, or bg-white) to style elements quickly. It makes building clean, modern designs much faster.

Cursor is an AI-powered code editor built on top of VS Code. It lets you generate, edit, and refactor code using built-in AI directly inside your project. Instead of switching between your editor and ChatGPT, Cursor acts like an AI teammate that can modify files, rewrite sections, and help you iterate faster.

🚀 Step-by-Step: Setting Up Cursor AI (First Time)


1️⃣ Download & Install Cursor

  1. Go to: https://cursor.sh
  2. Click Download
  3. Install like a normal app (Mac / Windows)

It looks and feels like VS Code — because it’s built on it.


2️⃣ Sign In

When you open Cursor for the first time:

  • It will prompt you to sign in
  • Use Google or GitHub
  • Free tier is enough for workshop use

You now have AI enabled by default.

No extra configuration required.


🧠 Understanding Cursor AI Modes

Cursor has 3 main AI workflows:

1. Chat (Project-Aware Agent)

Best for:

  • “Build this landing page”
  • “Refactor this file”
  • “Add a section”

Shortcut:

  • Open Chat panel (usually right sidebar)
  • Or press Cmd + L (Mac) / Ctrl + L (Windows)

2. Inline Edit (Targeted Rewrite)

Best for:

  • “Rewrite this paragraph”
  • “Improve styling here”

How:

  • Select code
  • Press Cmd + K
  • Type what you want changed

3. Full-Agent Editing

When you ask something like:

Build a landing page in index.html

Cursor will:

  • Propose file edits
  • Show diff preview
  • Ask you to Accept changes

This is your “agent mode.”


🛠 Setup for Workshop (Clean & Simple)


Step 1 — Create a Project Folder

Inside Cursor:

  1. Click File → Open Folder
  2. Create new folder: startup-landing
  3. Open it

Step 2 — Create index.html

In left sidebar:

  • Click “New File”
  • Name it: index.html

Step 3 — Add Tailwind CDN Starter

Paste this minimal starter:

<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<metacharset="UTF-8">
<metaname="viewport"content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<title>Startup</title>
<scriptsrc="https://cdn.tailwindcss.com"></script>
</head>
<bodyclass="bg-white text-slate-900">
<h1class="text-4xl font-bold p-8">Hello World</h1>
</body>
</html>

Save.


🤖 Now: Use Cursor AI Agent

Open Chat panel.

Paste this:

We are building a landing page in index.html using Tailwind via CDN.

Startup name: [NAME]
Context:
[PASTE CONTEXT]

Build:
- Hero section
- Features section
- Testimonials
- Pricing
- FAQ
- Footer

Keep it in one single HTML file.
Make it clean, modern, and responsive.
Only edit index.html.

Cursor will:

  1. Think
  2. Show file changes (diff view)
  3. Ask you to accept

Click Accept All/Accept file

You now have a full landing page.


🖥 Previewing in Cursor

Simplest options:

Option A — Open File in Browser

Right click index.html → Reveal in Finder

Double click file to open in browser.

Refresh after edits.


Option B — Install “Live Server” Extension (Recommended)

  1. Open Extensions panel
  2. Search: Live Server
  3. Install
  4. Click “Go Live”

Now it auto-refreshes.


🔄 How to Iterate Like a Pro

After version 1:

Improve Design

Improve the visual design to feel more modern and startup-like.
Better spacing, typography hierarchy, and subtle hover effects.
Keep it clean and minimal.

Improve Copy

Rewrite the copy to be more specific and human.
Avoid buzzwords.
Make the value proposition clear.

Change Vibe

Restyle the page in a bold neon tech aesthetic.
Keep structure same, update Tailwind classes only.

🧠 Important Settings (Optional but Helpful)

Go to:

Cursor → Settings

Enable:

  • “Auto Apply simple edits”
  • “Show diff before apply” (recommended for safety)

You don’t need to configure any API keys.

Cursor handles model access in the free tier.


👥 How Teams Should Use Cursor

Recommended pattern:

  • Person A: Drives editor
  • Person B: Writes prompt
  • Person C: Reviews result
  • Everyone reacts quickly

Rule:

If stuck → prompt.

If messy → regenerate.

If debating → ship v1 first.


🧪 If Cursor AI Stops Responding (Free Tier Limit)

Have a backup:

  • Open ChatGPT or any other similar AI Chat app (Gemini, CoPilot, etc) you have access to in browser
  • Generate full HTML
  • Paste into Cursor

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