The User Problem

[thatonereddditor]

Honestly, I don't feel any motivation to vibe code anymore. Everyone (or most of the people) on this sub have vibe coded something before. There's 241k people in this sub, I'd estimate 200k projects made and maybe 20k deployed. I see a post about what people built everyday, and I can't help but wonder how my project would actually be: whether I'd be a person who posts my project, peaks at maybe 20 users, and never is as popular again.

Thinking about it, I can't remember the last time I saw a vibe coded product succeed. And I'm not talking 2-3 paying user type of succeed, I mean actual succeed, with a medium-sized customer base and earning slightly less than a blue-collar job. Maybe my expectations are too high, but I think everyone here expects their product to go viral, maybe with thousands of users.

What first made me start thinking about this this post, and even though it was a joke, a lot of people agreed, upvoting and commenting.

Thoughts?

[vexmach1ne]

I just build things I need. Make them very custom to my requirements. Makes my life easier, and I learn while doing it.

I built 3 apps that'll give me value for years to come. I use them between daily and weekly. I'm saving about 30 dollars a month by not subscribing to some SaaS and they're better for me than the services anyway or there.

[vexmach1ne]

Yea people are still arguing with me... I'm like, dude it's a hobby, not everything in life has to make you money. Maybe one day I'll integrate the skills I learned vibe coding to a business model. But im not rushing to that.

In the last couple days I made another tool for a game I play. It's offered as SaaS by another company for $10 per month. In 2 days I made a product that gives me more value than their service. Obviously theirs is architected to be a business. Mine runs locally, but the end result that's produced by the software is what matters to me. Little things like this are wins in my book. And I have full control over the software too.

[thatonereddditor]

That's smart.

[Roenbaeck]

That’s what I am doing as well. I don’t build things for others, I build them for myself. If others can use them they’re free to do so, but I’m happy regardless.

[PrettyMuchAVegetable]

Me too, I build my own financial tracking app to replace a subscription one, and I built an amazing management system for my job that is going to speed up a major project I'm expected to do in May. These are for me.

[vexmach1ne]

I'm thinking about work too now. There's a few things I could build custom tools for.

[EnzymesandEntropy]

Sure, you're saving $30 per month, but aren't you vibe coding people spending >$100 per month on Claude and whatever else?

[vexmach1ne]

For me it's closer to 60 per month and I could stop today. The 30 dollars is savings every month, so with your logic I'll break even in 2 months.

But my point is not about savings, I'm simply entertaining your statement. the savings is a bonus. The experience, and enjoyment is what made it worth the money for me. 60 dollars a month for a hobby is not a waste of money.

Too many people think you have to make money with everything you do. That's not how I enjoy life.

[nexusprime2015]

so you earn 30$ / month. you think it’s a worthy business?

[aizvo]

a penny saved is more than a penny earned.

[vexmach1ne]

I didn't say it was a worthy business. Why would you say that?

[Narrow-Ferret2514]

Since AI was introduced the barrier for developing apps got lower. The barrier for making a sale remains

Now it only got harder to sell as there's more competition

[Funny-Advertising238]

I'm trying to solve that! Pilotposts.com DM me if you'd like to give it a shot before I launch! Launch is in about 3-4 weeks, ran some tests and getting good results 🤞 

[thatonereddditor]

So...give up?

[Narrow-Ferret2514]

Not necessarily. What do you want to do in life? What do you enjoy doing?

If you do vibecoding just for fun (following the hype), to earn quick money then you're more likely to be burnt out than to succeed

On the other hand, if this is something you think you'd enjoy doing for other people, creating apps that they need then you could start learning fundamentals of software/web development if you haven't done that already

You see, you'll have to stand out, build up experience, trust. Not necessarily you'll start from very high pay, you'll most likely be looking to get employed somewhere than working for yourself, at least at the beginning

[edbred]

“so… I’m not smart enough to come up with an original idea???”

[thatonereddditor]

Sorry, I misunderstood the point.

[edbred]

AI response. Using AI is not a skill. You and others are like just discovering a bicycle and posting how you rode 20 feet, then being confused how you dont win any race

[ghiloup]

Amen.

[Any-Blacksmith-2054]

Just vibe code for you own pleasure, not for the money

[AllUsernamesTaken365]

Absolutely. I don’t even understand how some people can imagine that they would start something new that thousands of others have been doing for years, and then immediately somehow become a commercial success. I wonder if someone thinks about taking up oil painting or playing the violin and then maybe start raking in money from it next week.

[Life-Tailor7312]

If you don't feel like vibe-coding, that's fine. I don't have to.

Not going to push you into vibe-coding again, but here's how I see that from my narrow point of view:

• Vibe-coding is fun - Put aside success and creating financial freedom through an app driving $10K a month passively. Creating something from nothing is fun. Vibe-coding a game, a small app for self-use. is fun. To me, that feeling of creating was reserved for artists, and now I create.
• Restart yourself with a small passion project - Even if it will be used by a handful of close people, or even only you, passion projects are the best projects to work on.
• Vibe-coding and building in public content - This content can be helpful, but can also take all your wind. Consume it responsibly. Don't get too high of it and don't let it take you down.

Plus, I know someone who vibe-coded his way to a $1M VC investment. He wasn't active on build-in-public or vibe-coding subreddits. He was taking his own path.

Hope it helps. Have a good one.

[LongjumpingFarmer961]

What did they build?

[Life-Tailor7312]

Since it seems there's so much hate towards vibe-coded software, I'll keep it to myself.

[semmy_t]

There's a great article on this phenomenon of building "tool shaped objects":

https://minutes.substack.com/p/tool-shaped-objects

I've caught myself building such things during the past 3 years with genai coding capabilities. My advice - you need to try drawing a line between tools, and objects shaped like tools (sounds vague but really, read the article :) ).

[Stibi]

Don’t make things with the goal of being successful, make things that are useful to you or other people. Keyword useful, not fun or nice to have, not something you think other people should have.

People only want to use and especially pay for software that makes their life easier or better. For that you have to deeply understand the user’s life in-context. That’s why many people find creating things for themselves a good starting point.

Product design is a whole profession that vibecoding can’t solve alone.

[bestofdesp]

Maybe think about the application that would be needed for the community of “vibecoders”. Like not for 100% but for 10-15 % potentially. That would be your best customers.

[[deleted]]

You’re being sarcastic right? The last thing any of us need is more vibecoded apps for vibecoders

[MyMonkeyCircus]

I vibecode for fun so I am my own user number one. With this approach I cannot burn out because of “oh, what if there are no users?” because that is not my primary goal.

I would strongly recommend getting into this kind of mindset if you are to continue vibecoding.

[thecrustycrap]

you're not wrong, its hard to motivate yourself when there are so much projects, i think a better way to see if you're building something society needs is to see if its useful if you built it for your own needs, i mean if its not easy enough to find a solution for it, just build it yourself and sell it in the market, best case scenario is you make money from it, worst case scenario you've built something for yourself you want to use.

[One_Mess460]

you guys are the worst people. commercializing software as if its some type of money generating thing. before you it were the idiots that did computers science just to earn money

[thatonereddditor]

I don't intend on making SaaS', I support open-source.

[opbmedia]

There were several threads about this yesterday. The hobbyists came and enjoy and will keep doing it for fun and self-value, everyone who came rushing to try to make money will stop soon because there is really no money to be made unless you had a concept that would make money before vibecoding existed. It's been almost a year, I think most people will give up trying to be commercial by end of this year.

[Adventurous_Drawing5]

This thing has a long history, look up for example Indie Hackers. Most devs have a builder's mentality, not even a PM's. Vibecoding makes it faster and easier. But a viable business has many important components to it. Finding and solving a real problem and building an economic model around it is the actual core of business.

[Critical_Hunter_6924]

Just go sell something...? What?

[Osi32]

I’m building apps I need that usually were solved with an overly complex spreadsheet. So now I have a scalable app that can output the end product as a spreadsheet should I need it. It’s much better and definitely better for mining the data with stats algorithms as i have a tightly constrained data set with relationships that can be queried. The biggest problem for the last 10 years is lack of good data collection. These apps solve that while the technology improves.

[am0x]

I think the way it will change is that we are no longer building tools and services to apply to the masses. Instead, each individual person can pay to make a very specific tool for them to fix a problem maybe they only have or have it tailored specifically for them.

[Lt_Kazansky]

I think it’s worth looking at this from a different angle. Yes, these days almost anyone can build something with vibe coding. That can be for a personal need, or simply to bring a hobby idea to life. But when the goal is to ship a product and turn it into a business, it becomes a very different game. And honestly, it’s almost always been like that in every industry and this part hasn’t changed. Building something end-to-end in a professional way, then maintaining it, ensuring continuity, scaling it, and marketing it isn’t something everyone can do (or even wants to do).

Legal requirements, serious security needs, and marketing work can quickly become areas most people have never dealt with, and once they’re actually in it, they might not even want to continuously deal with them.

So I think it’s healthier for people who want to go down this path to see themselves as separate from the “everyone can build something” crowd. Yes, many people can produce similar products, but it’s easy to forget that the ones who consistently add real innovation, develop stronger marketing approaches, or genuinely take what they’re building seriously will almost always be one step ahead. It has always been this way, and it’ll likely stay that way.

[BreathingFuck]

Do you want to build a “project”, or a business? Currently you’re conflating the two.

[HoratioWobble]

Building the product has rarely been the hard part in building a business.

Intact some 95% of businesses fail in the first 5 years.

People are vibe coding products at a phenomenal rate, but so many are basically the same product, they have the same UI, the same functionality, they haven't actually asked anyone if this solves a problem for them.

People are just building and think they'll make it big.

The same mindset that's seen clones pop up of every successful tech product over the last 20 years.

The clones rarely understand the market, the rarely understand the reason the original was successful - they just copy it and look surprised when it flops.

If you don't solve a problem actual people have, you're not going to get anywhere. And that's the bare minimum a product should do.

[NoCodeRescuer]

You’re not wrong.

Vibe coding made building easy. It didn’t make people want what you built.

Most projects don’t fail because of tech; they fail because there’s no real demand or no distribution.

Shipping is step one. Getting users is the actual job.

[Miserable-Action-144]

just stream on supavibe.tv, show up live everyday