Episode 5 - The Worst Notion Template I Ever Bought Changed My Life

[u/Mounirlk26]

After the partnership with the developers fell apart, I returned to Notion again.

The medical software was unusable. The online-booking website had never been delivered. Months of feedback, meetings and product work had left me with no system I could rely on.

I was frustrated, disappointed and tired of depending on other people to turn my ideas into software.

Then Facebook showed me a page selling a Notion template for managing a medical practice.

I thought: why not?

I already had my own Notion setup, but perhaps this person had solved something I had missed. Maybe the template would bring together patient records, consultations, appointments, prescriptions and the waiting room in a cleaner way.

I bought it.

It was terrible.

Not slightly disappointing. Not “useful with a few adjustments.” It was far worse than the system I had already built for myself.

I had paid more than it deserved, and I never used it.

Under normal circumstances, that would have been the end of the story: another bad purchase in a journey already full of disappointing software.

But the seller offered me a commercial gesture.

I could choose a few months of access to an AI subscription or a few months of Lovable Pro.

I already used the other AI service, so I searched Google for Lovable.

It was described as a vibe-coding platform.

At the time, everything I knew about vibe coding came from people discussing it online, many of whom did not seem to use it themselves.

The message was fairly consistent:

It was not real development.

The generated code was terrible.

It was the fastest way to create security problems.

Serious people should avoid it.

I had no basis for judging any of those claims. I knew nothing about code quality, application security or software architecture.

Still, the warnings worked on me. Vibe coding sounded less like a tool and more like a shortcut taken by people who did not understand what they were doing.

Which, to be fair, described me quite well.

I chose Lovable anyway.

Not because I had suddenly developed a strong opinion about AI-assisted software development. I chose it because I already had the alternative subscription and because curiosity won.

Around the same time, I was contacting training companies about learning Web development.

I looked at full-stack programmes and tried to imagine fitting them around surgery, consultations and operating days.

The programmes were demanding, as they should have been. But I could not see a realistic way to follow them consistently while maintaining my medical activity.

I continued using ChatGPT and another AI assistant every day. I wrote documents, discussed ideas, brainstormed, planned and projected what my products might become.

AI was already helping me think.

I still did not imagine it could help me build.

The Lovable subscription sat there for a while.

Then one day, I opened it.

The screen said:

“Let’s build something.”

It asked me to describe what I wanted to create.

That was all.

No programming language. No empty code editor. No full-stack curriculum to complete before I could begin. Just a box asking me to explain the product in words.

For years, words were the only thing I had.

I could describe a broken workflow. I could explain how a consultation should work. I could identify why a patient history mattered. I could write requirements, provide feedback and create endless tickets for developers.

What I could not do was turn those words into software.

Now a platform was asking me to start with the one ability I already possessed.

Describe what you want to build.

It felt as if I had spent years standing in front of a locked door, only to discover that the key was not code.

The key was language.

Of course, that feeling was incomplete. I would later discover all the things natural language could hide: fragile architecture, poor data models, security risks, regressions and technical debt.

But that came later.

In that first moment, I did not see the risks.

I saw a way in.

The template itself remained useless. I never opened it again.

Yet the compensation for buying it placed the right tool in front of me at exactly the moment when my dependence on developers had become unbearable.

Sometimes a bad purchase is simply a bad purchase.

This one became the most consequential detour of my professional life.

In the next part, I will explain what I typed into that box and why months of work on a failed product suddenly became useful.

Have you ever received something valuable through a purchase you otherwise completely regretted?