🧃 “I've spent 10+ years bringing products to market. Yesterday, I built one myself” - Diana Golduber, Product Marketing Manager (post link)
I failed as a CS major in college. And I never graduated from the coding bootcamp I eagerly signed up for two years ago. I always wanted to learn to code, but it never clicked. It was hard. It was daunting. And even in the supposedly beginner friendly classes, I already felt behind and that everyone already knew what was happening. And it sucked to be in that position.
But today through the power of AI, I can finally build all the things my heart desires, without a fancy CS major or coding bootcamp certification! And you can too. Today’s article is all about what is vibe coding, the tools you should start with, and examples of what to build.
What's inside this week:
This week's newsletter sponsor: Hubspot
Build What You Want
Galentine’s Event Recap
What’s Hot on the Internet
Founding Membership Extended - 50% Off
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What the hell is vibe coding?
Vibe coding, in its most simple and literal sense, is when you describe what you want in natural language and AI builds it for you, writing the code in the backend on your behalf.
The term originated from this tweet by Andrej Karpathy, founding team at OpenAI:
Why should you care?
Because everything created up until this point has been developed by humans with hands on keyboard. Every app you've ever used, every website you've ever visited — all of it was written by developers, line by line.
But, that's not the case anymore. AI can now write entire applications from a plain English description, and it's outpacing developers at a rate that would've sounded ridiculous even two years ago.
The tools that exist right now make it possible for anyone to build, even someone with zero coding experience, to create real-life, functioning apps. And people aren't building generic apps, they are solving their own hyper-specific problems with custom solutions.
We are entering the era of hyper-personalization.
Which tools should I start with?
Lovable — This is my #1 rec if you've never built anything before. You describe your app idea in plain English, and Lovable generates both the design and the code. The free plan gives you 5 credits a day to experiment, and Pro is $25/month. I used this app to make the AI Snack Club Founding Member post generator for LinkedIn (link).
v0 (by Vercel) — If you came to our Galentine's event (more on that below!), you already got a taste of v0. It's incredible at creating polished, beautiful web components from a simple text description. The free tier gives you $5 in credits per month, and Pro is $20/month. I'd say v0 is perfect for someone who wants their output to look really good right away, like, scarily professional.
Claude — If you already use Claude (hi, it's my favorite AI tool and you know this by now), you can build quick MVPs right inside your conversation. Just ask Claude to create an interactive app, dashboard, or tool and it generates a working prototype you can use and share immediately. It's great for testing an idea before committing to a full build on Lovable or v0. You can even ask Claude to write you a prompt for a vibe coding tool.
And what should I build?
Here are some ideas to get the wheels turning:
For your career:
A personal portfolio site that actually looks professional
An internal dashboard to track your team's metrics
A custom project management tool that works the way your brain works
An AI-powered email template generator for your specific role
For your side hustle or business idea:
A landing page to test if people are interested in your thing
A simple booking or scheduling app
A product recommendation quiz
A directory or marketplace MVP
For your life:
A meal planning app customized to YOUR dietary preferences
A habit tracker that doesn't annoy you
A gift idea generator based on the recipient's interests
A wedding planning tool
🦋 Here's what I want you to do this week:
Pick an idea. From the list above or something entirely your own. Or use AI to help you think of something.
Open one of the tools listed above
Describe what you want in a few sentences. Be specific! Focus heavily on the outcome and components. Or if you need help writing your prompt, use Prompt Cowboy to build it for you.
See what happens and share your experience with me! Or in the community Slack.
Last Tuesday was AI Snack Club's first-ever in-person event and I'm still buzzing about it!! We partnered with v0 by Vercel for a Galentine's Vibe Coding Night at their San Francisco office, and it was everything I hoped it would be and more.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NIGHT ✨
raffling off the most insane bouquet of flowers from Megha at Wave Floral
seeing live demos of an app that scans Hinge profiles to verify if they are actually over 6ft 🤭 (link coming soon)
indulging in pizza, poppi, rose, and candy!!!
and of course listening to taylor swift, duh
NEXT SESSION COMING SOON!!! 👀
What’s Hot on the Internet
AI took over the Super Bowl ads — 15 out of 66 commercials featured AI. Google used Gemini to redesign a family's home, Chris Hemsworth accused Alexa+ of trying to kill him, and Anthropic mocked other chatbots for adding ads. Three AI commercials in 45 minutes is A LOT. (link)
AI can read brain MRIs in seconds — University of Michigan researchers built an AI that interprets brain scans almost instantly, flagging everything from aging patterns to cancer. Not replacing your doctor, but getting closer. (link)
Lovable's 28 Days of Lovable challenge — Since we're talking vibe coding today, this felt too relevant not to mention again. Free daily lessons all February on prompt engineering, design thinking, and actually shipping an app. Jump in at february.lovable.app and join our slack channel to chat with our members on their monthly journey.
Founding Membership Extended Through February!
If you haven't joined yet, Founding Member pricing (50% off) is available through February. This is the lowest it will ever be. Lock in your spot here!
