What is vibe coding? A plain guide for South African businesses

Vibe coding is building software by describing what you want in plain language and letting an AI tool write the code. You say "a booking app for my salon where clients pick a stylist and pay a deposit", and a tool such as Lovable, Bolt, v0, Cursor or Claude Code produces a working first version in minutes.

The term was coined by AI researcher Andrej Karpathy in February 2025, and it stuck because it describes the feeling: you steer by intent, not by writing code line by line. For a South African small business that has never been able to afford custom software, that is a big shift.

What you can actually build

Vibe coding works best for the software most businesses run on: records, forms, screens and simple rules. Good first projects include:

• Business websites and landing pages that bring in enquiries: see how to build a website for your business
• Booking and appointment apps for salons, clinics, tutors and service businesses
• Job cards for plumbers, electricians, technicians and maintenance teams
• Client portals where customers see their orders, quotes or documents
• Internal tools that replace a messy spreadsheet: stock, leave, fleet, school fees
• Dashboards that pull your numbers into one screen
• Automations that send follow-ups, reminders and reports on their own, with tools such as n8n, Make or Zapier

It is far less suited to software where a mistake is very costly: payroll calculations, medical records, anything that moves money without a human checking it, or systems that must handle very large volumes from day one. Those still need an experienced developer, even if AI helps them.

The tools, in plain terms

There are two broad kinds of tool, and most businesses end up using one of each.

• App builders such as Lovable, Bolt and v0 run in the browser. You chat, they build, and you see the app straight away. They are the easiest place to start if you are not technical.
• Coding assistants such as Cursor and Claude Code work on the code itself. They give more control and suit a developer, or a technical founder, who wants to own and host the code.
• A database such as Supabase or MySQL stores your records. App builders often connect to Supabase for you; if you host with a South African provider on cPanel, MySQL is the usual choice.
• Automation tools such as n8n, Make, Zapier or Power Automate move information between your systems: a new booking triggers a WhatsApp reminder, an overdue invoice triggers an email.

Why first attempts go wrong

The demo is impressive. The trouble starts on day two, when you try to turn the first version into something your team can rely on. The same problems come up again and again:

1. The tool guesses. Anything you leave out of your prompt, it invents: the fields, the statuses, who can see what. Then you prompt again to correct it.
2. Each fix breaks something else. Changing the data structure halfway through means screens, rules and automations no longer line up.
3. Credits run out. Most tools charge per message or per build, and they bill in US dollars, so the rand cost moves with the exchange rate. Prompting again and again is how a small project eats a month's credits.
4. Nobody thought about roles and permissions. The office manager, the technician and the client should not see the same things.
5. Personal information is an afterthought. In South Africa, POPIA applies the moment your app stores a client's name and phone number. See our POPIA checklist for vibe-coded apps.

None of this is a reason to avoid vibe coding. It is a reason to plan before you prompt.

Plan first, then prompt

Professional developers do not start by typing code. They start with a plan: who uses the system, what records it keeps, what each screen does, and what happens automatically. AI tools work exactly the same way. Give them that plan up front and they build far more accurately, in fewer prompts.

A useful plan answers five questions:

1. Who uses it? List the roles in your business's own words, such as Owner, Office administrator, Technician, Client, and what each may do.
2. What do you record? The tables and their fields: a Job has a client, an address, a fault, a status, photos and a sign-off.
3. What does each person see? The screens, and what is on each one.
4. What should happen on its own? Reminders, follow-ups, alerts and reports, with what triggers them.
5. How will you know it works? The numbers you want to see, and a few real examples to test with.

We cover this in detail in how to stop burning credits.

How to start this week

• Pick one small, real problem. Not "a full ERP", but "technicians log jobs on their phones instead of paper".
• Write the plan above on one page, or let a tool draft it with you.
• Build the first version in an app builder, one step at a time: the data first, then the screens, then the automations.
• Test it with real examples from last week, not made-up ones.
• Put it in front of two or three people in your team before everyone.

If you want to learn the skills properly, Level 5 (AI-Assisted App Building) and Level 6 (AI Agents and Automation) in the AussyPrompt Academy teach these tools step by step, with certificates at the end.