Vibe-Coding Startup Founder Warns Easy Copycat Risk for the Industry
It is a founder who has sold his startup that warns the growing ‘vibe-coding’ field is more fragile than it seems. Maor Shlomo, founder of Base44, said that while tools that allow non-coders to build apps by simply prompting AI are getting loud, many of them can be quickly replicated by competitors.
Shlomo remarks that the interface one sees, where a user types a prompt and an app is generated, is actually the most straightforward part. The toughest part is actually creating the backend infrastructure (databases, authentication, analytics, integrations) and engineering a product that users will find in the real-world use. He further states: “For every feature we roll out, we are aware that a competitor can copy it within weeks or months.”
Base44 was run on personal savings and the company grew fast, reaching hundreds of thousands of users before Wix purchased it for about US$80 million. Shlomo, however, still warns that startups solely focusing on clever prompts or slight AI fine-tuning will have a hard time making a lasting competitive position.
In other words: if you are pondering the decision to invest in a vibe-coding startup or to build one, then you should be more concerned with the heavy engineering work going on behind the scenes rather than the front-end experience. The ‘talk to build an app’ tools hype is genuine, but the moat is very shallow. (The recent study of similar tools shows that user traffic and growth are already declining.)