Vibe Coding: Why Your AI-Built App Has No User

Vibe coding is when you use AI coding tools like Cursor, Replit, Lovable or Bolt to ship a product based on what you want it to do - no coding skills required. If you have an idea, you can prompt the AI to build it, iterate through the build and launch.

The vibes are immaculate: the build is fast and the code works… and then nobody uses it.

I've seen this pattern countless times while reviewing vibe-coded products in the last year. Three months of rapid building, launch day excitement, then crickets. A few sign-ups, no retention, just a confused founder adding features hoping something will stick.

The problem isn't the tools - Cursor and Replit are brilliant for building quickly. The problem lies in building quickly without stopping to think what you're building or for whom.

The Vibe Coding Trap

Here's how it usually goes:

1. You spot a problem in your world (usually your own problem)
2. You assume other people have this problem too
3. You sketch out a solution in your head
4. You fire up an AI coding tool and start prompting
5. The AI builds it surprisingly fast
6. You ship it
7. You wait for users
8. You wait some more
9. Nothing happens
10. You add more features
11. You tweak onboarding
12. You post on Product Hunt again
13. You try reddit
14. You cold-email people
15. Still nothing.

Eventually you start wondering: is this a marketing problem, a product problem or did I just build something nobody actually wants?

Usually it's the last one.

The danger of AI coding tools is they remove the friction that used to force you to think. When building meant hiring a developer or learning to code yourself, you gave yourself time to validate the idea first before investing real money or months of learning.

Now you can go from idea to working product in a weekend. Which means you can also go from half-baked assumption to polished solution for a problem that doesn't exist.

What Vibe Coding Gets Wrong

Vibe coding optimises for shipping. But shipping isn't the goal — solving a real problem for real people is the goal.

Here's what gets skipped:

Problem validation. Is this actually a painful problem? For whom? How do they solve it today? Would they pay to solve it better?

User research. Who are these people? Where do they hang out? What language do they use to describe the problem? What have they already tried?

Value proposition clarity. Why would someone use this instead of [spreadsheet / existing tool / doing nothing]? What's the specific benefit?

Distribution plan. How will people discover this? What's the first 10-user plan? The first 100?

You can ship a technically sound product without answering any of these questions. But that's the trap we’re trying to avoid.

The Three Questions You Should Ask Before You Build

I run a simple diagnostic with founders who come to me post-build with no traction. Three questions:

1. Can you name five specific people who have this problem?

And the answer can’t be ‘small business owners’ or ‘busy parents’. You need to tell me real names and scenarios, actual human beings you could message right now. You need to have observed it yourself. If you can't name the people specifically, you're still guessing that you’re solving something.

2. How often do people struggle with this issue and how long does it take to tackle it?

You can’t just know people have a problem to build a solution, it needs to be valuable enough that people will part with money for it. If it’s a once-in-a-while inconvenience, it’s unlikely there’s a real need there.

That being said, if it takes them several days to manage the problem each time it crops up, then frequency doesn’t matter so much. Weigh up the trade-off of cost vs wasted effort.

3. What did the last three people you spoke to say when you described the solution?

If you haven't had this conversation, you don't know if your solution resonates. You need overwhelming enthusiasm for your solution - ‘that’s interesting’ and ‘I’d probably use that’ aren’t good enough. You’ll know you’ve nailed it when people are asking when they can access it and how much it costs.

Most vibe-coded product owners fail at least two of these questions, which could be an indicator why so many of them fail to launch.

What to Do If You've Already Built It

OK, so maybe you’ve already shipped a working product and have zero traction. Now what?

First: don’t despair, not all hope is lost. The benefit of something as fast as vibe coding is that we can pivot. So let’s take a few steps back.

Stop adding features. Seriously. More features will not fix a fundamental product-market fit problem. Go back to the questions above and find five real people who have this problem. Once you’ve identified them, show them what you’ve built, let them play, and listen to their feedback.

There are three likely outcomes:

They love it but couldn’t find it. This is a distribution problem. Good news — you built the right thing, you just need to get it in front of more of the right people.

They like the concept but not using it. This is a product problem. The idea has legs but the implementation doesn't match how people actually work. This is fixable with targeted iteration.

They don't care. This is a market problem. Either the problem isn't painful enough, or you're solving it for the wrong people, or both. You might need to change the idea or kill it.

In my experience, about 60% of vibe-coded products fall into the third category. Sadly, the market just doesn’t exist.

How to Build the Right Thing (Even When You're Moving Fast)

Here's the sequence that actually works:

1. Identify a repeated, specific problem you've seen at least 3-5 times in real people.
2. Talk to 5-10 people who have that problem. Understand how they solve it today and what they'd pay for a better solution.
3. Sketch the simplest possible version that would meaningfully improve their situation. That could be a wireframe, Figma, or even slide deck. Low fidelity is fine.
4. Show them the sketch (wireframe, Figma, even a slide deck). Get their reaction. Iterate.
5. Now build the prototype using whatever tools make sense — Cursor, Replit, no-code, whatever.
6. Put it in front of the same people who validated the concept. Watch them use it.
7. Only then start thinking about distribution and scale.

It may seem slower than your previous process, but it should be faster. You're not wasting three months building features for a market that doesn't exist.

Vibe coding tools are brilliant when you know what you're building. They let you move from validated concept to testable prototype in days instead of months with minimal technical friction. But they can’t validate your assumptions or find users on your behalf. That’s still your job, and it’s an important one.

TL;DR

Vibe coding lets you ship fast, but shipping without validation means you've likely built the wrong thing efficiently. Talk to real users before you write a single line of code. Use AI tools to build quickly once you know what you're building, not to skip the thinking entirely.

If you've already shipped and have no traction, stop adding features. Go back to the problem. Find out if it's distribution, product or market. Two of those are fixable, one might mean it's time to move on.

Struggling with traction on something you've already built? I run a Traction Diagnosis Session for founders in exactly this position — we figure out whether it's a distribution problem, a product problem or a market problem and what to do next. Book a session here.