The Rise of the "Vibe Coder"

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There was a time when being non-technical meant your ideas would need someone else to bring them to life. If you didn’t have a technical co-founder (or weren’t one yourself) you were told to go find one before raising a cent. But that era is ending fast.

Today, founders are using no-code and low-code tools like Supabase, Framer, Webflow, and Lovable to build real products without writing a line of code. They’re launching fast, building in public, and stacking traction through narrative and network.

The solo, non-technical founder is no longer a red flag. In many cases, they’re the signal. And they’re raising rounds, winning users, and assembling teams - all before a single engineer is on payroll.

According to a 2024 Bubble report, over 3 million people (likely considerably more now) are now building on no-code platforms, with a 41% year-over-year growth rate1. That’s not a trend. That’s a shift.

The Rise of the Vibe Coder
They’re not engineers. They’re orchestrators.

The modern vibe coder founder is part product thinker, part storyteller, part community native. They don’t spend weeks refining a technical spec - they spend a weekend shipping a working demo on Supabase or Webflow. Then they share it on X with a punchy one-liner that hits 50k views.

Their edge isn’t technical depth, it’s narrative fluency and distribution instincts. They know how to build what looks like momentum - and then actually turn it into momentum. Because in early-stage investing, signal often is substance.

They pull in early collaborators through Twitter threads. They build waitlists via Substack or niche Discords. They drop weekly builds, gather real feedback, and move faster than most funded teams. It’s not smoke and mirrors - it’s high velocity and execution.

This is why you’ll increasingly see early-stage rounds filled with angels who spotted the signal, not the stack.

Formation is Now Distribution-Led
When it costs next to nothing to build, it costs almost nothing to test.

No-code founders aren’t raising to validate. They’re validating before they raise. A working product, a growing waitlist, a handful of paying users - this is now the new baseline at pre-seed.

You can launch a product with Framer, connect Supabase for auth and data, plug in Stripe for payments, and start collecting user feedback on day one. All without hiring a single engineer.

And because the founder is often the face of the product - posting builds on X, replying in Discord, shipping weekly updates - the audience isn’t just watching. They’re participating.

This changes the fundraising dynamic. Traditional pre-seed rounds backed a dream. Today’s best early-stage rounds back momentum.

The result? Faster deals. More narrative-driven valuations. And a new generation of founders who see distribution as formation, not just growth.

What It Means for the Cap Table
Forget the classic founder + CTO + seed fund combo. The new early-stage cap table is starting to look a lot more fluid - and a lot more social.

You might see:

• A solo founder with no engineers but 10k newsletter subs

• A few Twitter-native angels with 20k+ followers each

• A Webflow designer with a sliver of equity for MVP help

• A TikTok growth hacker advising in exchange for sweat equity

• A small community round closed through DMs and Substack posts

Capital now comes attached to community. Distribution is bundled with design. The earliest rounds are less about ownership and more about amplification.

As more founders build in public, they don’t just create momentum - they create leverage. And that leverage shows up on the cap table: in the form of followers, collaborators, and narrative weight.

Potential Drawbacks

Let’s be clear: vibe coding isn’t a silver bullet.

The same tools that allow for fast iteration can also create a false sense of technical maturity. Products built entirely on no-code stacks might suffer from architectural limitations, scalability issues, or fragile integrations. What looks good in a demo might collapse under real user volume.

Security is another concern. Many early products are stitched together with third-party APIs and limited oversight. Without proper engineering review, vulnerabilities can be overlooked - and that’s a problem if you’re dealing with payments, data, or infrastructure-level risk.

There’s also the matter of substance. A slick interface and a good story can mask weak fundamentals. Some founders get very good at playing the game (shipping and storytelling) without ever proving the product solves a real problem.

So yes, vibe coding creates new doors. But investors still need to walk through them with diligence. Narrative without product-market fit is just noise.

The Investor Take
Old-school investors still looking for the next technical genius are going to miss this wave.

The best early-stage founders today don’t always show up with resumes full of exits or glowing recommendations. They show up with working products, distribution instincts, and a live audience cheering them on.

This changes the job of early-stage investors. It’s not just about sourcing proprietary deals or running diligence sprints. It’s about spotting high-context generalists with asymmetric insight, and helping them pour fuel on a fire they’ve already started.

In a world where distribution beats differentiation, investors who can recognise narrative leverage early will outperform those still chasing old templates.

What we’ve been working on at Shuttle

• We’re officially counting down to Drop No.4 - November 10th ⏳️ 

• Reaching out to Journalists as part of a Global PR campaign! 📰 

• Launched our new advertising campaign on LinkedIn 🔈️ 

The Unsophisticated Investor is brought to you by Scott & Rob, the founders of Shuttle. We’re both sick of private markets being a playground exclusive to the ultra-wealthy so we started a company to challenge the status-quo. Shuttle’s singular focus is to unlock private markets for Millennial and Gen Z tech professionals and help them build wealth through the highest performing private market opportunities.

Scott & Rob
Shuttle Co-Founders