200 Hours Vibecoding. 7 Rules.

Hey Marketing Gang!

Past two months, I've put 200 hours into "vibecoding", building real software with AI as the engineer. I’ve been obsessing over automated processes for Heatmap.com and ecommerce brands.

I spent over $5,500 in AI credits last month... I built real things. Client portals. Slack-to-anything automations. Reminder systems. OpenClaw setups. Local LLMs. Even purchased hardware for local models.

I am not a developer. I'm a marketer who can describe what I want. I’ve built & sold an 8-figure agency in CRO and wrote my book, Billion Dollar Websites. I come from a front-end background, not engineering. 

If you want help implementing AI for your business (stupidly fast), just reply to this email.

Here’s the 7 Rules to get you vibecoding faster and “right on the first time”.

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1. Vibecoding requires zero code knowledge.

You don't need to know what a function is. You don't need to understand a database. You ask the AI what to do, it tells you what to download, what to click. No code. Just settings. That. Is. It.

2. Learn GitHub. Immediately.

GitHub is your save point. Like a video game, save before the boss fight, respawn when you die. The AI WILL break something. Without GitHub you lose 4 hours. With GitHub, 10 seconds. No code. Just saves.

3. Plan first, then build.

Biggest mistake I see: people open the tool and start typing. Don't. Spend 20 minutes on the brief first. What. Who. Why. Smallest useful version. Brief WITH the AI, not alone. Talk through the plan with Claude before letting Manus build it. Output is 10x better. My single biggest prompting hack.

4. Different tools, different jobs.

Manus when you want a working thing fast. Claude for thinking and architecture. Cursor for surgical edits. Gemini for images and creative work. Don't force one tool to do everything. #notsponsored, just what's worked.

5. Debug with screenshots, not paragraphs.

Stop typing "the button is misaligned on mobile when you scroll past the hero." Screenshot it. Drop it in. Done. 10x faster than describing in words. Nobody told me this on day 1. Also, shoutout to Nik Sharma, who made my screenshots setting go to the Clipboard by default so I can instantly drag screenshots 10x faster

6. Talk to it like a smart junior, not Google.

Most people prompt in 5 words and hope. Output mirrors input. Give it context, why it matters, what good looks like. Quality of input = quality of output. No shortcut. The longer the better isn’t true, but I think of it as “the minimum amount needed for the AI to do an incredible job and get me what I want”.

7. Sprint to MVP. Knowing it's a wreck is okay for now.

Get it into a real person's hands FAST. The moment a human uses it, you find out if it should even exist, or if it's worth more than another week of polish. Harden the code AFTER, if it's worth pursuing. Test fast like the dropshipping days. Net-new software is now disposable.

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Here's what 200 hours actually taught me:

Vibecoding is for operators, not developers.

The skills that win are the ones we already have. Clear thinking and “knowing what good looks like” before you start. Engineers will pick up these tools, but operators who think in systems have a 12-month lead over engineers-only. True developers are able to work much faster, but to the 99% of you, it’s really you who stands to gain the most.

“The bottleneck used to be engineering. The bottleneck is now clarity.”
~Dylan

P.S. Reply with a number if you want me to go deeper on any one of these. Orrrrrr, reply to the email if you want help implementing AI to automate your business. Go crush the week!