In the bustling tech hub of Bengaluru, a new trend is sweeping through non-tech professionals—’vibe coding.’ This innovative approach to programming, utilizing artificial intelligence (AI), is enabling individuals with little to no coding background to craft custom websites and apps in mere hours or days.
Vibe coding is simplifying the development process by allowing users to employ straightforward, English-language prompts such as ‘Make me XYZ with ABC features.’ Platforms like Cursor, Replit, Windsurf, Bolt, and Lovable are at the forefront of this movement, providing tools that make coding accessible to everyone. While basic features are free, many users are opting for premium subscriptions, paying around $20 (approximately Rs 1,700) per month to access advanced functionalities.
### Leveling the Playing Field
Atharva Kharbade, a growth marketer who gained attention in March for developing staybroke.in—a database of ultra-luxury goods—in just two days, exemplifies the potential of vibe coding. As a college dropout, Kharbade found that vibe coding offered a level playing field, equipping non-tech individuals with the skills needed to compete in today’s job market. His newfound expertise recently secured him a position at a vibe coding platform.
Kharbade also participated in a vibe coding hackathon in HSR Layout on March 29, where 16 non-techies collaborated with IT professionals with 1-5 years of experience. The winning team created a fan fiction generator that visualized stories in various art styles. Other innovative projects included chatbots for health diagnosis, tools for identifying poor push-up posture, novel-writing assistants from one-line briefs, film recommendation engines, and AI-powered Instagram reel creators. One group even developed a productivity app that donates fines for online procrastination to charity.
### Self-Learning and Integration
The hackathon was organized by Nimisha Chanda and Vedant Rawal, both from non-tech backgrounds. Nimisha, a marketing professional, delved into AI programming tools last November, even before the term ‘vibe coding’ was coined by computer scientist Andrej Karpathy in February. Driven by curiosity and a desire to stay competitive, she self-taught herself the basics of tools like Replit, Python, and VS Code through YouTube tutorials.
Nimisha’s first project was a personalized AI tool for marketing strategy ideation and execution. Since then, she’s developed a fintech chatbot for explaining tax forms and running investment calculations. Her advice for aspiring vibe coders: “Be specific in your prompts—from color schemes to layouts—or you’ll end up wasting time correcting errors.”
Finance professional Naga Subramanya echoes this sentiment, highlighting the strengths and limitations of vibe coding tools. While excellent for frontend design, these tools can be less intuitive for debugging. Currently, Naga is developing a loan repayment calculator to replace cumbersome Excel sheets at work, and he has enlisted his office’s tech team to address backend issues and ensure security protocols.
### Business Opportunities and Corporate Adoption
Entrepreneur Prasad R is testing business ideas through vibe coding, creating an education platform for children that auto-generates personalized coloring worksheets. As a computer engineering graduate who never enjoyed coding, he appreciates the ability to quickly prototype, discard ineffective ideas, and iterate. If his venture succeeds, he plans to hire a professional team.
Vibe coding is not just for hobbyists; it’s gaining traction in corporate environments as well. Companies are incorporating it into their workflows to boost productivity and reduce development timelines. Tasks that previously took months now require just 6-8 hours, enabling rapid prototype development and quicker stakeholder feedback, says Chandramouli Coorg Subramaniam, Senior Vice President of Artificial Intelligence at a global consulting firm.
Subramaniam’s teams have progressed from using tools like Copilot to more advanced platforms like Cursor. Today’s AI coding assistants can generate 70-80% of the required output, but debugging remains a significant challenge. These tools, trained on open-source code, often yield inconsistent or overly generic results, complicating troubleshooting efforts.
To mitigate these challenges, Subramaniam advises saving work regularly for easy rollbacks, maintaining an internal library of coding styles aligned with company standards, and applying first-principles thinking to clearly define use cases and expected outcomes.
While vibe coding tools are not yet suitable for production-grade software, they offer promising opportunities for rapid development and innovation. However, Subramaniam emphasizes the importance of addressing security and intellectual property concerns associated with vibe-coded projects.
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