By Martin Peirce, CEO, Zahara.
Table of Contents
Introduction
I’ve always been a frustrated programmer. Capable enough to do a lot of techie bits, not capable enough to actually code. I’m in awe of my development team. They can convert requests into code while thinking about scale, the implications, the gotchas.
But AI changed everything, likely forever. Now, with vibe coding, an unaccomplished programmer like myself can convert ideas into applications, and ones that really work…
So far this year I have written three mobile apps – including Zahara Go, so blame me if you don’t like it – a complete back-end system we now run Zahara on, a supplier portal, and a whole spread of customer tools.
I started off asking ChatGPT to code for a particular task. “Hey Chat, I’m looking to create a list view connected to this SQL table, can you give me the code for the back and front end please.” (Always be polite to AI is my recommendation). Then – and this is where the ‘vibe’ comes from – I might say “Can we add a button at the top, make it our blue #2a68ec and have that pop up a new modal.”
You start to think, that will be nice, let’s add that, or tinker with this. No more scratched heads or sweated brows attempting to figure where you mistyped your application code. Just pure, instinctive building.
This method taught me the basics and I started to understand how the code fits together. But it had its limitations. Bugs were slow to fix copying and pasting between my code editor and ChatGPT, and the larger the file got the harder it was to understand where the issues lay. Then things changed again. People started talking about Cursor and Claude and well, quite frankly they’re amazing. Now I code with context.
Cursor shows me the entire file structure and how the project fits together. When I ask for something new, I just sit back as it creates files, edits existing ones, fixes its own code and then congratulates itself, usually with “Perfect…”
So, what do my development team think of me creating things like mobile apps? Well, the great news here is that they are on-side. They recognise they too will be able to do more. And quite frankly the faster we do things, the better chance we have of delighting our customers. Our mobile app was long overdue a re-write and, with the next eighteen months already mapped out, no one in-house had the time.
Vibe coding is a threat and an opportunity. The businessman in me sees the opportunity – I can write stuff that no one else in the team has time to do, and as a creative, it’s as enjoyable as crafting something out of wood (one of my hobbies) or tinkering with an old motorbike. It ticks a lot of boxes. But the threat is this: We have already canned Calendly and Zoho CRM, and have our sights on countless other pieces of software that will be absorbed into our in-house system, The Bridge.
Would we give Xero the boot? Here’s the kicker (excuse the pun): Absolutely not. How about HubSpot? Nope. Definitely not. Why? Because they add value – a lot of it. And I think this is the takeaway point for anyone in the software business today. You better make it valuable. Better yet, it should be valuable and meet a lot of needs.
We think Zahara does exactly that. It’s far from a one-trick pony like, say, Calendly. As a result I would hope our customers see the value and don’t think “Let’s write our own”. I can assure anyone reading this, it can’t be done over a weekend. Could you write a simple purchase order generator quickly? Yes. Absolutely. You could vibe that pretty easily and get it hosted on Azure or AWS. But the value comes when you apply a number of business functions into one application and provide a beautiful user experience. Then paying, say, £150 a month for an application that in our case controls costs, manages suppliers, checks budgets, reads and matches invoices, and updates Xero is pretty good value.
Martin Peirce
Founder and CEO
The Xero community we work with are generally what I call “Top-end SME”, scaling fast, and as a result, may not have an in-house development team or expertise to vibe code software. But in the enterprise space, change is afoot. We’ve heard about the big tech companies going all-in on AI and shedding development teams. I’ve also read articles about very large corporations like Klarna removing expensive software like Salesforce (although they seem to have buyers’ remorse). Software subscriptions in the millions of dollars a year may soon be a thing of the past. They might even seem laughable a few years down the line.
Vibe coding has added real value to Zahara without compromising the core product. I think it’s a fabulous opportunity. It also puts us on heightened alert to be the best and to move at pace. It allows us to say yes, a lot more than we once could, and that’s great for customers. As for me, righting the wrongs of my stunted programming career has been an experience I’ve thoroughly enjoyed.
