Vibe Coding for Beginners

+ Full Vibe Coding Setup for Non Coders

Early last month, we discussed the emergence of the term vibe coding and the basics of this approach to AI development. At the time, we said it looked like a huge trend. But hell, who knew the hype would be so big?

In just a month, it has gone beyond the narrow circle of AI enthusiasts. It's now a broad movement, influencing how creators get side hustles, how real startups create their products, and how investors evaluate teams.

Let's discuss a few of the most important events of the last month and prepare a complete set-up for your vibe coding.

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10 Vibe Coders Better Than 100 Engineers

It is almost impossible to track every aspect of a trend on vibe coding. In a week, the concept expanded from niche X threads to Y Combinator boardrooms.

Therefore, I propose to go through the three planes:

• Investors

• Startups

• Creators

We'll start with the first category.

Vibe Coding for VCs

This provocative statement you can saw above comes from Y Combinator’s CEO and venture capitalist Garry Tan. An early investor in Coinbase and Instacart has witnessed firsthand how AI development lets startups stay extremely lean.

He recently said that small teams can now reach revenue milestones that previously required a large engineering workforce. Tan emphasized that by speaking to LLMs, founders generate ready-to-launch apps with natural language instructions. If a feature isn’t working, they simply ask the AI to adjust it.

So, they don’t need to hire engineers. This approach suggests that 10 skilled vibe coders might accomplish what used to take 50 to 100 traditional engineers.

I'll admit, if I read this from a random X guy, I'd just skip ahead.

But that's not the case.

Other investors are also taking note.

As Bloomberg reported Replit (on of the main platforms for vibe coding) is now in talks for a new round at a $3B valuation, highlighting the massive market potential of platforms that empower users to build without deep technical expertise.

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Vibe Coding for Startups

As far as startups are concerned, they are also taking vibe coding into consideration. But it affects them in different ways.

There are YC projects which now hiring “vibe coders” instead of traditional engineers. That's exactly what the Domu Technology Inc did. It’s a voice AI startup that promise to crush it in the financial services industry. Now its founders are looking for vibe coders with a salary offer of $130,000 - $150,000.

Others simply not hiring as many engineers because one person with AI can do the work of several. For example, startup Snapbar earlier planned to expand a team but canceled the hire after seeing big productivity gains from coding tools​.

And Y Combinator’s latest batch reveals the situation more clearly: about a quarter of those new startups have 95% of their code generated by AI​.

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Vibe Coding for Creators

Independent creators are also embracing the trend.

For instance, Pieter Levels, as we mentioned in the previous post, transformed a simple idea into a multiplayer 3D flight simulator game. Now it earns around $72,000 per month from microtransactions and sponsorships. By they way, a few weeks ago it was around $52,000/mo.

But Peter is an example of an established solopreneur. There are other cases. Billy Howell, YouTube creator and blogger, also uses vibe coding to generate extra income. He uses Replit to generate code from prompts to quickly prototype and implement his ideas.

An example of Billy’s KPI tracing app

By testing and repeating AI results, he turns these prototypes into functional products that he monetizes through advertising, subscriptions, or direct sales. In his own words, he now makes about $750 a day.

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To summarize a bit, it all comes down to time savings and accessibility. And while many complain about the prospects of a future where AI takes jobs away from digital professions, the examples above show how to adapt to the new reality.

Let's look at how to be part of the latter group and avoid the former.

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Full Vibe Coding Setup for Beginners

For those ready to dive into vibe coding, here’s a detailed guide to set you up. It is aimed at beginners who want to quickly develop software.