University of Kwazulu-Natal

Vibe Coding Revolution 5 Ai Built Apps Generating Serious Revenue In 2

Bonisiwe Shabane
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vibe coding revolution 5 ai built apps generating serious revenue in 2

Non-technical founders are building six-figure businesses using AI to write their code Back in early 2024, Paul Graham noted that “the next big startup may look like a toy at first.” Turns out, he might’ve been talking about apps built entirely with AI. Plenty of engineers rolled their eyes when people started using ChatGPT to write full-stack apps by prompt. “It’s messy,” they said. “It’s not real programming.”

But now? Non-technical founders are quietly shipping tools, landing paying users, and even hitting $10K MRR—all without writing a single line of code by hand. For years, developing software required using an unfamiliar language—a realm of strict syntax in which one wrongly placed semicolon might cause a complete system failure. Yet a fresh hope has energized the tech community, reviving a vision as ancient as computing: imagine creating intricate applications just by chatting with your computer. This captivating notion, known as "vibe coding," has surged from a concept into a multi-billion-dollar phenomenon. The phrase was introduced by OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy, who also brought attention to its core idea: "the popular programming language right now is English." Vibe coding, as he explained, is an approach where...

And disregard the existence of the code itself." It signifies a transition, from careful coding to acting as a director steering a capable AI assistant to realize your vision. However, is this new age a miraculous advancement, or does this revolution conceal deeper complexities? The astonishing pace of progress masks a truth involving enormous financial changes, concealed technical risks, and unforeseen effects on the industry itself. This narrative examines the five key realities of the emerging era of AI-powered development. At the start of the AI competition, firms developing applications based on foundational models such as ChatGPT were frequently labeled with a derogatory term: "wrappers." These companies were regarded as intermediaries merely attaching a... That viewpoint has been entirely reversed.

Renamed as "AI apps, " these firms are currently the favorites of the tech industry drawing valuations that frequently surpass the revenue multiples of the model creators themselves. This occurs because they validate an argument: the greatest worth in AI lies not in basic intelligence, but in advancing "up the stack" to address concrete, practical human challenges. They accomplish this by combining models with an enhanced user interface, customizing them for particular fields such as law or healthcare, and developing exclusive data barriers that establish robust business defenses. Vibe coding for small business is transforming how entrepreneurs build software; no coding bootcamp or developer required. Imagine telling an AI about your dream app on Friday and launching it by Monday using plain English. For many small and medium-sized businesses, vibe coding is much more than another technology trend; it's a faster way to launch with lower costs and larger results.

For many small and medium-sized businesses, Vibe coding is much more than just another technology trend; it's also a faster way to launch, smaller margins, and larger results. Vibe coding is amazingly different from traditional app development. Rather than writing each line of code, you tell the computer what you want to do, like "I want a client portal where clients can schedule and make payments," and an AI will write... According to Google Cloud, this method allows anyone to create websites, applications, and other projects simply by describing their vision. According to IBM, this is a new approach to coding where users use natural language to communicate their intent, and an AI creates executable code from those instructions. Developers first used the term in early 2025, when they were creating full apps within platforms such as Replit, Shopify, and Wix, using conversational AI to perform tasks.

Tasks that would have taken weeks to complete via traditional development methods are now often taking less than a day or even hours to complete. For mid week monetization PM bites follow me on Linkedin The AI coding revolution also termed as ‘VIBE CODING’ has produced some of the fastest-scaling startups in history, but two companies stand out for their unprecedented growth velocity: Lovable (founded in 2023) and Cursor... Vibe Coding essentially focuses on three parameters Intuitive Interaction focusing Natural language prompts to build applications over syntax Provide Immediate Results: Working solutions over configuration

The AI coding revolution is here, and vibe coding is the hottest trend dividing developers. After a full week of experimenting—building a real-world productivity app without writing a single line of code myself—I discovered both the incredible potential and serious limitations of this approach. Here’s the full story. Vibe coding is a new paradigm in software development, coined by OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy in February 2025. Instead of writing traditional code, you describe your app in natural language and let AI generate the implementation. The key principle: accept AI suggestions without meticulously reviewing every line of code.

Vibe coding isn’t just AI autocomplete—it flips the development process upside down, prioritizing outcomes over understanding the underlying code. During my experiment, I used multiple AI coding platforms to build a productivity app. Here’s what stood out: Vibe coding excels at rapid prototyping and standard app features: A roundup of successful vibe-coded applications with publicly available revenue figures and technical breakdowns. "It won't scale." "The code quality will be terrible." "No serious customer would pay for that."

Skeptical statements like these have dominated the conversation ever since Andrej Karpathy introduced the concept of "vibe coding" — when you build apps primarily through prompting AI models to write the code. But a growing cohort of entrepreneurs has ignored the critics to make real products that are making real money. This post is about these products. We'll cover the basic details of each app but we'll also go deeper, digging into their revenue numbers, the backgrounds of their founders, the AI tools used to create them, and more. The ‘vibe coding’ revolution, where AI-powered tools let anyone build apps with natural language, is hitting a new inflection point. While startups like Lovable and Replit boast explosive growth, a critical gap has remained: turning those AI-generated prototypes into fully functional, production-ready businesses.

Now, a new player, Anything, has secured an $11 million funding round to bridge that divide, promising to empower a new wave of non-technical founders to launch real app businesses. Anything, co-founded by former Google colleagues Dhruv Amin and Marcus Lowe, announced its $11 million financing round at a $100 million valuation on Monday. The round was led by Footwork, with additional backing from Uncork, Bessemer, and M13. This investment arrives as the company, launched just a month ago, has already hit a $2 million annualized run rate in its first two weeks. The market for AI-assisted coding is undeniably hot. Swedish startup Lovable reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in just eight months, while Replit’s ARR soared from $2.8 million to $150 million in less than a year.

“This is one of those spaces where every company is growing like a weed,” notes Nikhil Trivedi, co-founder and general partner at Footwork, Anything’s lead investor. However, Trivedi points out a significant limitation among many of these rapidly growing platforms: they excel at generating initial concepts but often fall short when it comes to the backend infrastructure needed for a... “You haven’t really seen real businesses built on top of any of these tools,” Anything co-founder Dhruv Amin told The Verge. “We want to be the Shopify of the space, where people build apps that make money on top of us.” Anything’s differentiation lies in its comprehensive, in-house infrastructure, providing everything from databases and storage to payment functionality. This soup-to-nuts approach means users don’t have to piece together disparate services to get their AI-generated app off the ground.

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