What Is Vibe Coding?

Vibe coding is the practice of using AI-powered coding assistants (like Cursor, Replit, Lovable or Bolt) to build software by describing what you want in plain language. You explain an idea in a prompt, the AI writes the code, and you ship something in hours or days instead of weeks.

This development has democratised building. People who couldn't write a function six months ago are now deploying live products. so the barrier to entry has collapsed virtually overnight.

That is genuinely exciting, but I foresee an issue with what happens next.

The Problem I Keep Seeing

A founder uses Cursor or Replit to ship their first version under the 'just ship it' advice. Launch day arrives, so they post on Product Hunt, Reddit, a few Slack groups. They probably get a handful of signups…

…Then nothing.

They add a feature and launch again, but still nothing. Add another feature, post in more places, pour money into ads… yet more silence.

They have a working product, 12 features and zero meaningful traction. They start wondering if the problem is marketing, positioning or them.

Usually it’s none of these. The real problem is they built something before properly understanding the problem they were solving, and whether people would actually pay for the solution.

Vibe coding made it so easy to build that they skipped the hard thinking. They optimised for speed when they should have optimised for clarity.

Why Vibe Coding Works

Vibe coding works brilliantly for one thing: turning an idea into a tangible artefact quickly. If you need to test an interface, validate a workflow, or show someone a rough version of your concept, these tools are exceptional. It allows you to get a MVP out there to test in rapid time.

Where vibe coding breaks down is when founders treat shipping as the final product and not the start of their journey.

Shipping proves you can build something but it doesn’t prove anyone wants it. It won’t prove the problem is real, that your solution is the right shape, or that people will pay for it.

Those questions require a different kind of work. You need to talk to potential users, understand their context, map the problem space, and design a solution that fits the way they already work.

AI tools cannot do that for you. They will happily write code for a bad idea as quickly as they will for a good one.

Asking the Wrong Question

'Should I bootstrap or raise money?'

I’ve been hearing versions of this question in startup communities recently. The answer is neither yet.

If you are burning personal cash or wondering whether to raise, the issue is usually that you have not validated the problem or the solution clearly enough. You are optimising for funding when the blocker is clarity.

Bootstrap or raise is a question you ask after you know what you are building and for who. Until then, the decision does not matter because you are spending time and money building the wrong thing faster.

This is the same trap vibe coding creates. The tool gives you speed. Speed feels like progress. Going faster in the wrong direction just gets you lost quicker.

What Happens After You Ship

So you’ve shipped after you’ve built using a no code tool and have a working product but now you’re stuck.

Here is what needs to happen:

Problem validation. Go back and check if the problem you think you are solving is real, urgent and something people will pay to have you fix. This means talking to potential users, not reading Reddit threads or guessing.

Positioning clarity. Define exactly who this is for. 'Anyone who needs X' is not an answer. You need to know where these people are, what they care about, and why they should choose your solution over doing nothing.

Retention design. If someone uses your product once, why would they come back? Most vibe-coded products are built around an initial interaction with no retention hook. That is a strategy problem, not a feature problem.

These things require thinking, questioning, and often brutal honesty about whether the thing you have built is the right thing.

When Vibe Coding Is Exactly Right

There are cases where vibe coding is the correct tool for the job.

If you need a prototype to show potential customers or investors, vibe coding gets you there fast. If you are testing a workflow internally and need something rough but functional, it works. If you already have clarity on the problem and the solution and you just need to ship a v1 quickly, AI tools are brilliant.

The key is knowing what stage you are at. If you are still figuring out the problem, vibe coding will not help you. If you have already validated the problem and the solution, vibe coding can accelerate delivery.

Most founders I meet are in the first category while thinking they are in the second.

The Cost of Moving Too Fast

The hidden cost of vibe coding is not the tool itself. It is the sunk cost trap it creates.

You have spent three months building features. You have a live product. You have users (even if only five of them). Walking away or pivoting feels like failure.

The longer you spend building without validating, the harder it becomes to step back and admit the fundamentals are wrong.

I have had founders tell me they cannot afford to go back to discovery because they have already spent months on the product. The truth is they cannot afford not to. A few days of structured problem validation now will save months of building features nobody wants.

What to Do If You Are Stuck

If you have vibe-coded your way to a working product and you are stuck on traction, here is where to start.

Stop adding features. More features will not fix a product people do not want.

Talk to 10 people who fit your target user profile. Not friends. Not people who will be polite. People who have the problem you think you are solving. Ask them how they currently deal with it. Ask them what they have tried. Ask them what would need to change for them to switch.

Map what you learn back to what you have built. Does your product solve the problem they described? Does it fit into their existing workflow? Would they pay for it?

Be honest about the gap. If the gap is small (positioning, a missing feature, unclear messaging), you can iterate. If the gap is large (wrong problem, wrong audience, wrong solution shape), you need to pivot or kill it.

Killing a project is not failure. Building the wrong thing for six more months is. Time is critical when going to market.

Vibe coding is brilliant for turning ideas into working software quickly. The problem is that speed does not equal strategy. Most founders ship fast and get stuck because they built something before they understood the problem or the people they were solving it for. If you are stuck post-launch, the issue is not your marketing or your features. It is clarity. Go back, validate the problem, define your audience, and be honest about whether what you built is the right thing. A few days of hard thinking now beats months of building features nobody wants.

If you have shipped and you are stuck, book an MVP Clarity Session. We will figure out whether the problem is the product, the positioning, the audience and what to do next.