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While AI tools make it easy to go from vision to prototype quickly, product managers and builders find it increasingly difficult to turn these proofs-of-concept (POCs) into marketable products and acquire customers. There's a need for tools or platforms that lower the bar for productization, marketing, and customer acquisition for AI-powered applications.
I'm not gonna lie, building with AI tools is super fun. It can be frustrating too, but yesterday I built a small app to replace a SaaS tool at Highline Beta (for vacation/time off management) and it was crazy fun. Realistically it'll take a couple weeks (off and on) to be production ready, but damn... I 🩷 building stuff. To go from idea to functioning app in a day is wild. As a product manager, vibe coding is a huge unlock and I'm just scratching the surface. While building the app, I couldn't help but think, "Would anyone else benefit from this?" I could throw up a landing page, try & drive some traffic & see if there's any opportunity. Clearly not my day job, but also reminded me: Is this really solving a problem that matters enough, or am I just having fun building apps because I can? I have zero evidence that this app solves any real pain point (except it'll be mildly useful for us). I've done no research at all. Half of the reason I'm building it is to experiment with vibe coding tools. That's not going to drive sales. If I wanted to try commercializing this app I'd need to do things properly: * Conduct the research (interview people) * Look at competition * Evaluate needs and requirements * Understand pricing * And more... Oh boy. That's a lot of work. It's a good reminder: Just because I can build something doesn't mean anyone will want it. I've made that mistake before and swore I'd never do it again. But vibe coding is so alluring, so easy to get into...it's hard not to. So I try and stay grounded: 1. Build whatever you want, as quickly as you want, based on your own ideas / intuition. Fine, let's not pretend we won't do this. 2. But DO NOT fall in love with what you build! 3. Put your stuff out there but be rigorous about how you measure value creation. 4. Do the research. I still fundamentally believe in the importance of research before building, because it'll guide to better building, but I 100% get the allure of building, launching and figuring it out after. The research gets tougher later; it focuses on specific features or minor UI issues, not the fundamentals. It's hard to know if you're pivoting off anything meaningful or just winging it. I've never done research and NOT learned something useful, so that has to remain part of the process. 5. Be prepared to be wrong. Building something quickly doesn't increase your odds of being right. It speeds up your ability to iterate, but without actual learning, you're not really iterating, you're winging it. Suddenly you've spent 2+ on that app that "only took a few days to build" and you've wasted a ton of time. Wasting time sucks. While I don't consider the time I spent on this app a waste, if my goal was to commercialize, it very well could have been unless I do things properly. 6. Building things people really want is hard work. Success is never instant. Be prepared for the grind, and if you don't do things in a reasonably logical way it'll be even more painful.