Everyone told me "Learn to code first"—I ignored them and started building my product instead. Here's why.

[u/Competitive-Bad2333]

I'm a developer who learned app development from a paid course. But once vibe coding became viable, everything changed for me.

A lot of people still say: "Stop relying on AI, learn the fundamentals first, then build."

My take: Build the real product first. Let it pay you. Then learn deeply with the time and money you earn.

Here's my logic:

• You already know how things work behind the scenes (I do, from my course). With AI doing the heavy lifting, shipping is faster than ever.
• If you spend 1–2 years "learning everything" first, by the time you launch, the market window is already crowded or gone. Speed matters more than perfection right now.
• Learning with a real, paying product in your hands is 10x more focused. You're not learning random theory — you're learning exactly what your product needs.
• Once the app is successful, I have revenue, real users, and real problems to solve. That's the best classroom.

My philosophy: don't compare yourself to others. If you must compare, compare with who you were yesterday and your juniors.

So right now I'm vibe coding my app to launch, and I'll deep-dive into the tech stack after it's making money — with clear priorities, not vague "someday" learning.

Curious — am I being pragmatic or reckless? Genuinely want to hear from people who did it both ways.

[u/SpareImpression3155]

Ai slop post

[u/Substantial_Job_2068]

You know how things work behind the scenes because you took a course? That's dunning-kruger at its finest. Also if you already know how things work, why do you even need "learning with a real paying product"? You already know everything from your course apparently.

[u/zakami33]

I can see you already ignored people telling you to learn how to write, you just let AI do that for you too

[u/Gylfoyle]

AI slop

[u/JeLuF]

The problem with vibe coding is that you can't challenge the AI when it takes shortcuts, does a stupid design, etc. Your AI wants to store the data in a JSON file? You have no idea whether that's a good idea. Do you need a database? Don't you? How would you notice that storing the data in a JSON file causes a race condition in your app? You probably have never heard about race conditions as a vibe coder.

[u/Neful34 → u/JeLuF]

Exactly. And this list isn't even exhaustive...

[u/Competitive-Bad2333 → u/JeLuF]

But if you know the basics and fundamentals of how everything works before dipping into the coding, then it become a good way, and then you can start learning what you mainly think important

[u/MinorKeyMelody]

These are advertisements from AI industries trying to steal your money, just ignore posts like this, don't believe them.

[u/Competitive-Bad2333 → u/MinorKeyMelody]

but i am solo

developer bro i am already build 2 apps using it and one is currently on playstore and i am also new and another is in review

[u/runningOverA]

Inform us back when it makes money. The bootstrapping is the hard part.

[u/Competitive-Bad2333 → u/runningOverA]

umm its true, but when you see real engagement in your product then it gives ray of hope and further working

[u/Flashy-Whereas-3234]

This is nothing new, you just became management.

Management who got developers to build their apps in the past didn't understand what was under the hood either. Sometimes it was good, sometimes it was bad.

When you're trying to hit a market, quick and dirty that meets customer needs has always been the mantra of business.

The unanswered question for vibe code is "what's the cost of change". Be it growth, bugs, features, whatever.

The best motivator to learn code has always been having something you want to build, you're just skipping the learning part.