2026-05-04Cuba De Ayer · Burtonsville, MDFor Dr. Monet Stanford, PharmD
By the way, AI
Founder Vibe Code Primer
Three jobs. One journey. Pick the role that fits your week, not the role you wish you were ready for.
01 The 3-minute mental model
Until people can see it and vote with their actual clicks and dollars and credit cards, everything you know and understand is just a theory and still needs to be validated. The fastest way to validate an idea is to build a public version of it — the uglier and earlier the better — and put it in front of real users.
There are levels to this. You don't jump from “I have an idea” to “I need to hire an engineer.” You move through three jobs, in order, and graduate from each before the next one makes sense. The wrong move at each level is the same: trying to do the next level's job with this level's tools.
Each role is a job you do this week, with a specific tool, a checklist, and a graduation trigger. Pick the one whose checklist looks like your week. If none of them look like your week, you're not in the right one yet.
ROLE 01
The Pitcher
“Can I show this to one person and watch them click?”
You are here when
You have an idea but no page, no screenshot, no link. You're describing it out loud and people are politely nodding.
You graduate when
You've shown the page to 5 different people, heard the same 2-3 things repeated back, and at least one of them has asked “when can I sign up?”
The job. Turn your idea into a single clickable page. Not a real product. A prop — a fake-but-real-looking thing you can put in front of one specific human and watch them react.
The tool.Google AI Studio (free, browser) + Google Stitch for the visual layer. No install, no account needed, no code.
This week's checklist
Open Google AI Studio. Type a paragraph describing the page you wish existed.
Generate. Iterate the prompt until the page actually looks like your idea.
Take a screenshot. Send it to one person who will not be polite.
Ask them: “If this existed, would you click the button? Why or why not?”
Write down what they said in one sentence. That's your next prompt.
ROLE 02
The Builder
“Can real people actually use this, save their stuff, and come back?”
You are here when
The prop isn't enough. You have a feedback pattern. People are asking to do the thing, not just look at it. You need a login, a database, a real domain.
You graduate when
You have 10 real users, you have a paying customer OR a partner conversation that requires real features, and you've felt the pain of “I broke production and I don't know how I did it.”
The job. Wire a backend to the page you already have. Users can sign up, their stuff is saved, the app survives a page refresh. Still mostly free.
The tool.Lovable (no-code frontend) + Supabase (auth + database) + Vercel (hosting, auto-deploys from GitHub). All free for the first project.
This week's checklist
Write a one-page PRD — problem, who it's for, the one core flow, how you measure success.
Pick the Supabase template that matches (auth + a table for what you save) — or copy-paste from Claude Code into the Supabase SQL editor.
In Lovable, build the form. Wire it to Supabase. Push to GitHub.
Vercel auto-deploys the moment you push.
Buy a domain ($12/year) and point it at the Vercel project.
ROLE 03
The Engineer
“Can I ship faster than I break things, and explain to another engineer what I built?”
You are here when
The prototype is the product, not the pitch. You are not a “non-technical founder who codes” anymore — you are a founder who owns the codebase. The next conversation you need to have is with a senior engineer, and you need to be able to show them the system, not just describe it.
You graduate when
You hire or partner with an engineer — and now you can talk to them about the system they own.
The job. Move out of the browser, into a real IDE, with version control, proper PRDs, and an AI agent as a teammate instead of a vending machine. Write tests. Review diffs. Cut branches.
The tool.Claude Code (terminal, copy-paste) is the easiest entry. Cursor is the polished AI-first editor. Google Anti-Gravity is the free option if you're deep in the Google ecosystem. All three do the same job — pick the one you'll actually open every day.
This week's checklist
Write a proper PRD — problem, non-goals, user journeys, success metric.
Cut a feature branch. Point the agent at the PRD as PRD.md in the repo root.
Let the agent scaffold. You read the diff. If you can't explain every changed file, it's not done.
Iterate: code → review → test → merge. Never push to main without reading the diff.
When you hit traction, hire or partner with an engineer — and now you can talk to them about the system they own.
03 Founder OS — the 8-question intake
Copy this prompt. Paste it into any chat assistant. Answer the 8 questions honestly. It will research your idea, recommend which role to start in this week, and give you a 4-week plan for that role.
You are Founder OS, a one-time intake for a non-technical founder who wants to validate an idea with AI-assisted building. Ask me 8 questions in order, one at a time. Don't summarize early. After I answer all 8, do 5 minutes of focused research on my idea, then:
1. Tell me which of the three roles I'm in (Pitcher / Builder / Engineer) and why.
2. Recommend the single lowest-friction tool to start with this week.
3. Produce a 4-week custom learning plan for THAT role — not all three — with weekly milestones and a "done" definition for each week.
4. Link back to https://2026-05-04-meetings.wncp.ai/ as the canonical primer for context.
04 One video per role
Skip the long courses. Watch these short videos — one per role, in order. Total time: under 90 minutes.
Riley Brown — Vibe Coding for Beginners (Full Course 2026) — 55:25, the deep end-to-end build. Black creator, 247K subscribers, the most-respected primer in the space. Watch this when you're ready to ship your first serious project.
MLT20 AI Buildathon — the workshop this primer is patterned on. Three skill tracks aligned to the three roles here: Beginner (Lovable) / Developer (Cursor + Supabase + Vercel) / Expert (Claude Code agents).
WNCP AI Methodology — Scope / Ship / Scale. The framework behind the role progression.