What six months of vibe coding taught me

Originally published on LinkedIn

6 months into my vibe coding journey, I never expected to learn that much. I thought it would make me lazy but I've learned a lot, met people and I'm now part of a builder community.

I come from a marketing background with no coding experience. Six months ago, I started improving the tools and systems I was already building and turned to vibe coding to streamline my process. I discovered builders on X and saw how many doors it opens for solo builders with limited resources. The first app I built was a creator metrics validation tool.

Since then, I've built four others, from a kids' reading app to content tools and an emergency coordination app: mirrortales.com, mysafecircles.app, alicecontentos.com, trusted-metrics.com.

The thing they all have in common: they came from a real need. MirrorTales to turn kids into the heroes of their own stories; Alice Content OS to organise my content and workflows and SafeCircle to easily check if family members are safe.

Things I learned

You don't need a big team to build something that works.

But you do need patience, resilience, and a willingness to learn.

Vibe coding doesn't do miracles and doesn't replace developers. I think of these tools as junior coders. You must guide them step by step and work with them, not just prompt and expect perfect results.

It can get you to 90% fast. The last 10% is where everything happens. That's where things break, where you debug, and question everything. It's the part that tests your persistence.

“Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” Thomas Edison.

Most of the time is not spent prompting. It's spent understanding what's not working and fixing it.

That's why I build stronger coding fundamentals. You can start without coding, but you hit limits if you don't understand what's happening underneath.

You can delegate execution to AI, but you can't outsource understanding.

Over time, I've moved from Figma and Notion to a broader stack: VS Code, Cursor, Claude Code, Supabase, Vercel, Redis, PostHog, and a few others for APIs, automation, and analytics.

Managing tools, APIs, and access is a challenge.

API access can drive you crazy. PAT expiration can drive you insane. I use tools like Infisical to manage that.

I have 9 agents helping me across the process, from building and debugging to structuring content and automation.

It still feels unreal that I'm now working with schools and kids' associations to create private story circle apps where children build stories together.

6 months ago, I wouldn't have imagined this.

If you're starting don't begin with a big ambitious project. Start with something simple that solves a real problem. I started with a simple task and time management tool. It helped me structure my time and made everything else possible.