Vibe coding isn't for vibe coders

I first thought that vibe coding would benefit the vibe coders the most. Now I think the big deal is the craftspeople getting more speed. Also that the relentlessly resourceful people of this world that are not building stuff today, might get inspired and start to do side projects that turn into startups.

Vibe coding to me is chatting or talking to an AI that help you build digital products (within the crafts of design, UX, product management and software development)

Yes, in this age of vibe coding it is impressive that Michael from finance suddenly can show a working product after a weekend of vibing in Lovable. It's still not quite normal, I find myself impressed every day with a hint of FOMO. But most of these newly vibed products are things that shouldn't have been built. Products that don't solve an important enough pain. Things that would rightfully die in the first meeting with yesterdays friction of getting a product out there. Because you used to be able to feel that it was not going to be worth it. Or at least it would die on day 2 after no one except your friends checked it out, and no one at all came back to it. Sure some future vibed products will hit a home run and become something, but that’s not going to be the norm.

People that before didn't make products now do. Paul Graham once found a word to describe people that were not going to be successful with a startup, and he chose the word "hapless". People that just cruise and let the world happen to them. So his advice was "don't be hapless". It is now the age of the hapless. They are entering the startup door with vibed products, although most will die by the shoe rack in the hallway. Because startups is still a game for the relentlessly resourceful. This is the term Paul Graham eventually find to describe those who succeed with startups. They hit walls and just always finds a way to continue around it.

Hapless people now build something not worth building up to 80% and stop there. Or they might happen to build the right thing up to 80%, and then stop there. But its not only the hapless that now will vibe themselves inside the startup door. The relentlessly resourceful outside the holy product trio (design, product, development) will also build the right and wrong thing up to 80%, and NOT stop there. People that have been drawn into work or studies not related to the beautiful art of building products. People that have the relentless fire living within them. They will vibe and see the light, see that they can create things physically or digitally and they will never go back.

In fact a very positive thing with this whole vibe revolution is that everyone, from the hapless to the normal to the relentless, become very inspired. Also everyone around them gets increased respect and admiration for the crafts like product management, design, UX and development. When you yourself feel how hard it is to structure a flow between pages, what buttons to put where, and how to make it pretty, then respect rises. Everyone that sees Michaels post gets inspired to, like a hapeless word-of-mouth viral spread, inspiring and increasing the respect for the craft in leadership and board rooms across the world. It's OK that the normal and hapless dont jump into startups, at least they get a bigger understanding and respect for the craft, which is good for us when they later in a merger or aquisition or in our board rooms becomes our bosses. (the real hapless will never vibe though, so maybe Im talking here about the partly hapless)

This will also make the inactivated relentless do startups, getting them fired up seeing what is possible and feeling the fire of inspiration we all have felt from working on a project of your own. Michael might break out of finance and get a product designer and a dev to join him and make a startup, if he is relentless.

The downside of this wave of inspiration is a noisy space. Everyone in this world will get more numb from an overload of products that should be checked out. It’s now easier to get all kinds of products up to 80%—those who shouldn’t be made and those who should. Those who shouldn’t will die, and for the ones that should be built: the remaining 20% become very important.

So here comes the tribute to the craftspeople—designers, UXers, and the devs. It’s their craft that will become even more important going forward.

The relentless craftspeople will now outsource what can be outsourced, and get iterations and user research done quicker, making the remaining 20% look more like 80%, separating them from the vibers. Before, you could see the difference by the vibers not having a product and the craftspeople having something good. Now we will see OK products by the vibers, and exceptional ones that truly can be felt by the craftspeople.

The biggest deal with vibe coding is that the craftspeople will get more speed and make the remaining 20% look and feel like an 80% difference by outsourcing to AI the outsourceable. And the todays non-building, or building within other realms than digital products, relentless of our world will be activated.

Some other thoughts that should be explored:

– Will things be 100% vibed? Maybe its own essay, but some things will start and be kept vibed, some will be a mix, and many will start with vibe then transfer to a CTO-controlled, AI-supported dev trench.

• What is the actual speed improvement of startups with the vibe coding revolution? Is it 1x or 6x?

– A danger with this development for us all is that it’s easier to throw more features at something, both for the relentless and the hapeless. So saying no and prioritizing—and thus the craftspeoples skills—will again become more important.

– I guess some types of products “vibe better” than others. Like making a standard newspaper vibe-coded thing is easy and becomes 90% good, but a new original animated creative thing is hard. Why? Because there are many examples for the AI of the easy stuff? Easy is easy to vibe?

– The numbness from seeing purple AI-generated landing pages will be cured by original designers with taste, giving you a breath of texture as a background, and an animation that’s been made with care.