Vibe Coding Proof of Concept
Putting the cart before the horse—ludicrous mode!
Low-code and no-code tools are advancing at an astounding pace, but the first challenge of proof-of-concept (PoC) work remains knowing what to build.
What are you trying to prove?
Let’s start with a physical example.
You’re designing a grown-up fidget toy for mass production, so you make a small batch of prototypes—maybe only one. You show them to widening groups of family, friends, and strangers to learn from their reactions. You refine the concept and make fresh batches. Only once you’re confident in the design do you order a large production run. In fact, you might even launch a crowdfunding campaign to gauge interest before committing.
Now, let’s move to the digital realm.
You plan to disrupt a service industry still stuck in the dark ages of manual processes—much like Uber did to taxicabs. To do this, you’ll need to accept a request from a consumer, interact with four or five APIs, coordinate a network of gig workers, and orchestrate a seamless experience.
Since your vision is clear, you work out the key features, user flows, and automations that will make your service stand out. You capture it all in a document an LLM can understand. And then you build it. Oh my God, do you build it—refining and fighting with the LLM to get every last detail right. Days or weeks later, possibly with help from actual software engineers, you have a working prototype. The PoC from your vision is now a reality. You test it in the wild, then announce your arrival to the world.
This is the moment of truth.
You find out what you missed. And depending on the miss, you might have to start over.
Wait, what?
What assumption are you testing?
Something critical gets lost in the digital example: lean startup philosophy tells us to test our assumptions. Chief among them is whether customers are even willing to leave the incumbents. If you can’t convince them to engage, it doesn’t matter how polished your technology is. This is the digital equivalent of strangers refusing to touch your fidget toy.
Do NOT order a large production run!
In many cases, the simplest path is the best. Maybe as little as a form submission. If it validates your hypothesis, it’s doing its job. The orchestration can remain manual until you have validated learning around the problem space and consumer needs.
Do things that don’t scale. — Paul Graham
The point of a PoC is speed and learning, not perfection. Once you know the solution is viable, then you can invest in building it for real.
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