Today we’re tugging at a dangerous idea: that building should feel effortless.
Is vibe coding real leverage — or just simplicity dressed up as progress?
And why shipping your enemies glitter might be the smartest move of all.

There’s a new phrase drifting through builder corners of the internet: vibe coding.

It describes a mode where you’re no longer engineering line by line — you’re feeling your way through a product. Prompts instead of plans. Iteration instead of architecture. Shipping before you’re fully sure what you’ve built even does.

And it feels great.

⚡ Why it’s so seductive
Vibe coding removes friction.
No blank files. No setup paralysis. No weeks lost “learning the stack.”

You describe a thing. It appears.
You tweak it. It improves.
You ship in hours what used to take weeks.

For founders and solo builders, this is oxygen. Momentum replaces mastery. Progress replaces purity.

🧠 The hidden trade-off
Vibe coding optimises for output, not understanding.

When everything works, it feels magical.
When it breaks, you realise you don’t really know why.

You didn’t build the mental model — you navigated around it.

That’s fine for:

It’s dangerous for:

🪢 This pattern isn’t new — just faster
We’ve seen this cycle before.

No-code platforms promised speed, then hit ceilings.
Frameworks abstracted complexity, then leaked it.
Copy-paste development worked… until it didn’t.

Vibe coding is the same bargain, just smoother and more powerful.

You’re borrowing leverage.
And leverage always accrues interest.

🧩 Judgment becomes the real skill
The winners won’t be the people who vibe-code everything.
They’ll be the ones who know when to stop.

When to slow down.
When to refactor.
When to actually learn what’s happening under the hood.

Vibe coding is exceptional at getting you to the problem.
It struggles with the final 20% that turns something clever into something durable.

🐢 Loose Ends take
Use vibe coding like a sketchbook, not a foundation.

Move fast. Ship early. Follow the thread.

But when something starts to matter — when users rely on it, when money touches it, when time compounds — switch modes.

Vibes are a shortcut.
Understanding is the moat.

And most founders don’t fail because they shipped too slowly —
they fail because they never stopped vibing long enough to notice the cracks.

Steve Jobs believed that simplicity is harder than complexity. Anyone can add features. Very few can remove them and still make something great.

🧠 Jobs’ core idea:
Real innovation isn’t about doing more—it’s about deciding what not to do.

✂️ Why founders struggle with this:

🛠️ How to apply it:

📉 Short-term pain:
Some users complain. Some ideas get shelved.

📈 Long-term gain:
Clear positioning, stronger products, and faster decisions.

In a tangled startup, simplicity isn’t minimalism—it’s focus made visible.

(Insight inspired by Steve Jobs)

A real, intentionally ridiculous service that lets you anonymously mail a glitter-filled envelope to someone who deserves mild chaos. Ship Your Enemies Glitter does exactly what it says—nothing more, nothing less.

Completely useless. Entirely legal. Weirdly cathartic. It exists because emotional payoff beats practicality—and because sometimes the product is the joke.

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Before you go:

Until next time,

Connor / Loose Ends