Vibe Coding
Updated 4 August 2026
Vibe coding is the reason the €40,000 first build is dying. A founder who cannot write a line of code can now describe a product and watch working software appear. That is genuinely new, and genuinely misunderstood in both directions: it is neither a gimmick nor a free pass. Here is the honest version.
What it actually is
The phrase came from AI researcher Andrej Karpathy in 2025: build by telling the AI what you want, accept what it produces if it works, and iterate in plain English. In practice, vibe coding covers a spectrum:
- App builders (Lovable, Base44): describe the app, get a working web app, never see code.
- Agents (Claude Code, Codex): direct an AI that plans and engineers a real codebase while you steer in English.
- AI editors (Cursor, Replit): for those who want the code on screen with the AI doing the heavy lifting.
The common thread: the bottleneck moves from "can you code?" to "do you know what you are trying to learn?"
Why it matters for founders specifically
The first version of a product used to cost €30,000 to €80,000 in Ireland, which meant validation happened after the big spend, exactly backwards. Vibe coding collapses the cost of the experiment. Demand, behaviour, pricing, all of it can now be tested with working software for hundreds of euro. The founders who win with it are not the ones who build fastest; they are the ones who point the build at their riskiest assumption.
What it is genuinely good at
- Prototypes in days. Real, clickable, shareable software while your competitors are still writing a spec document.
- Iteration speed. Users confused by a screen? Change it over lunch, not in next month's sprint.
- Cheap dead ends. Killing a bad idea after €100 of building is a victory. Vibe coding makes failure affordable, which makes trying things rational.
Where it falls over
- Quality is invisible to you. The app can look right and be wrong underneath: insecure, fragile or slow. Fine for an experiment, dangerous once money and personal data flow through it.
- The demo-to-product gap. Every tool gets you 80 percent of the way disturbingly fast. The remaining 20 percent, edge cases, reliability, polish, is where founders stall without help.
- It amplifies unclear thinking. Vague idea in, confident wrong product out, faster than ever before.
How to do it right
Start with the question, not the tool: what is the one thing that kills this business if it is false? Build the smallest thing that tests it. Pick the tool that fits the shape of that test. Put it in front of real people within weeks. And before real customers pay real money through it, get experienced eyes on what the AI built.
That first step, matching the idea to the question and the question to the craft, is precisely what a Flight Check does. The tools are cheap now. The judgement is where the value moved.
Common questions
What is vibe coding?
Vibe coding means building software by describing what you want to an AI in plain English and letting it write the code, judging the result by whether it works rather than by reading every line. The term was coined by AI researcher Andrej Karpathy in 2025 and became the umbrella name for building with tools like Lovable, Claude Code, Cursor and Replit.
Can you build a real business by vibe coding?
You can absolutely build a real first product and find out whether a business exists. Plenty of live products started this way. What you cannot skip is the point where paying customers depend on the software and someone needs to genuinely understand it. Vibe code the experiment; engineer the business that survives it.
What are the best vibe coding tools?
For non-technical founders the practical shortlist in 2026 is Lovable or Base44 for point-and-click web apps, Replit for building and hosting in one place, Claude Code or Codex for the most capability with a small learning curve, and Cursor for people who want to see the code. The right one depends on the idea, not the tool's popularity.
Is vibe coding safe for handling payments and user data?
Be careful. AI-built apps work, but security and data handling need deliberate attention that a prompt will not volunteer. Use established services such as Stripe for payments, keep personal data collection minimal, and get a competent review before real customer data or money flows through anything.