Product development is not a one and done. It’s a practice, in the same way a martial art is a practice.
It’s an artform where your medium is the wants and needs and staring into the dark space wondering what should have been here.
It’s that feeling you get when you know that something was always missing here and you can bairly see the edges but you know you are seeing something no one else did before.
Maybe it is an alteration to the clothing, maybe it is a widget for keeping your coffee warm. Maybe it is something bigger like a way to figure out what happened to the money that you set aside for paying bills.
I’m on a mission to help unlock that parctice in everyone else.
I’m Matt and I love to create products. I have spent my whole life doing this.
The syllabus
Week 1: Passion
The goal of week 1 is simple: You will build something and you will speak about why the next week.
Topics
- Isolating a core Idea
- Who is your audience?
- Why do you care?
Homework
Work in teams over the week to take an idea and vibe code it into existence. If you already have one, then improve on it and help the others.
Week 2: The tools
Week 2 is about streamlining your toolset. You can build and deploy and maintain a system for less than $10 per month
Topics
- Databases
- GitHub
- Claude and Cursor
Homework
Build your app again, but this time do it in a way that is easier to get into a flow with.
Week 3: The market
Week 3 is about understanding your market. What is already out there?
Topics
- Building your front page website
- Explaining your concept
Homework
Build a website to showcase what you are thinking about.
Week 4: The flows
Week 4: is about providing a better onboarding experience into your existing app. We will look at a couple apps and talk about the bottleneck and misscommunication that can come from a badly thought out application.
Week 5: The deployment
Week 5: Is to help understand why deployment of an application is so vital in how you expect your users to consume it. How do you introduce them to your idea, how will it spread?
Week 6: Product market fit
Week 7: Market Growth
Week 7 is about When you find the market and the way to approach it, what do you do?
Week 8: Tying it all back together
Week 8: Is a look back at what was accomplished in a short period of time and talking about how to make it even faster. How do we get through all of these steps to test even more ideas.
A lot of people can now get an app off the ground with AI.
That part is no longer the bottleneck.
You can describe an idea, prompt your way through a rough prototype, and get something working in a weekend. That is a real shift. It lowers the barrier to software creation in a way that would have seemed wild just a few years ago.
But that is not where most builders fail.
They fail in the gap between something that works and something people actually want to use.
That gap is where a new kind of builder gets stuck, and it is also where a class like this becomes useful.
The real problem with vibe-coded apps
If you look at the current wave of AI-built products, the pattern is pretty clear:
- Starting is easier than ever
- Finishing is still hard
- Polish, structure, and judgment matter more than tools
Most people do not need help getting their first screen on the page. They need help with questions like these:
- Why does my app still feel amateur?
- Why does it keep breaking when I add features?
- How do I know what to simplify and what to keep?
- What should I fix before I show this to people?
- How do I go from prototype to something real?
That is the problem this class is designed to solve.
Class concept: from vibe to product
This class is not about teaching people how to ask an AI to generate code.
There are already plenty of videos and tutorials for that.
This class is about what comes next:
How to turn a vibe-coded app into something stable, clear, usable, and worth sharing.
It is a bridge between the first burst of AI-assisted creation and the harder work of building a real product.
The target student is someone who already has a rough app, or can make one quickly, but keeps running into the same wall: they have momentum, but they do not know how to finish well.
Who this class is for
This course is for builders who are somewhere in the middle:
- hobbyists who made something cool and want to improve it
- indie hackers trying to launch a real product
- non-technical founders who can prompt but cannot yet evaluate quality
- professionals building internal tools for work
- curious creators who want to level up their taste and judgment
It is not primarily for advanced software engineers. It is for people who can get an app started but need help making it better.
What makes the class valuable
The value is not in the tools alone. Tools change fast.
The value is in teaching students how to think about the next layer of development:
- design
- structure
- debugging
- analytics
- product judgment
- launch readiness
In other words, this class teaches people how to finish.
That is rare, and it is where a lot of real leverage lives.
Proposed class title
From Vibe to Product: Ship an App People Actually Use
That title says what matters.
The goal is not to help someone produce more code. The goal is to help them create something that feels real.
Class outcome
By the end of the course, students should have:
- a live app
- a cleaner and more usable interface
- a more stable internal structure
- fewer bugs and better debugging habits
- basic analytics in place
- a clearer sense of who the app is for
- a launch plan or feedback loop
- a next-step decision: continue, pivot, or stop
That is a meaningful transformation.
Suggested course format
A strong version of this class would run for 6 to 8 weeks and include:
- one weekly teaching session
- one live teardown or feedback session
- weekly homework applied to the student’s actual app
- a strong expectation that students ship something every week
This should not be a passive course. It should be hands-on and outcome-driven.
The app they work on should be their own.
The syllabus
Week 0: Setup and baseline
The goal of week 0 is simple: everyone must have something working.
Students either bring a rough idea or choose a small project prompt. They use AI tools to generate a basic MVP and deploy the simplest working version they can.
The standard here is not polish. The standard is existence.
Topics
- picking a small enough project
- choosing a tool stack
- using AI to generate an initial MVP
- deploying a basic version quickly
Homework
Ship a rough app, even if it is ugly.
This step matters because students learn more from improving a flawed real thing than from thinking about a perfect one.
Week 1: Make it not ugly
This is where many students get their first real win.
A lot of vibe-coded apps technically function, but they feel awkward. The spacing is inconsistent, the flows are confusing, and the interface does not inspire confidence.
Week 1 teaches the basics of making an app feel more real.
Topics
- visual hierarchy
- spacing and layout
- consistency
- reducing confusion in flows
- making the core action obvious
Homework
Clean up the main screen or primary user flow.
This week should produce a visible before-and-after change. That helps students feel the difference between code that works and product that feels intentional.
Week 2: Clean the mess
AI-generated apps often get messy quickly.
Code gets duplicated. Logic sprawls. Features are added without structure. Students may not know exactly what is wrong, but they can feel that the app is becoming harder to manage.
This week introduces structural sanity.
Topics
- identifying duplicated logic
- simplifying components and flows
- separation of concerns
- knowing when to refactor
- improving without rewriting everything
Homework
Refactor one major feature or messy area.
The point is not to create perfect architecture. The point is to make the product easier to change and less likely to collapse under its own weight.
Week 3: Debugging and reliability
This is one of the biggest walls for newer builders.
When the app breaks, they often do not know how to investigate the problem. They rely on repeated prompting, but eventually that stops working unless they can reason more clearly about what is happening.
This week teaches practical debugging.
Topics
- how to isolate a bug
- logging and error handling
- using AI as a debugging partner
- recognizing recurring failure patterns
- creating a more reliable development loop
Homework
Fix three real bugs and add basic logging.
This is where students start feeling more independent. They stop treating bugs like random disasters and start treating them like solvable problems.
Week 4: Know what is happening
Many builders launch without any measurement.
They do not know where users drop off, which features matter, or whether anyone is finding value. That leaves them guessing.
This week adds a feedback loop.
Topics
- what to track
- key events and user actions
- simple analytics tools
- interpreting behavior without overcomplicating it
- using data to guide product decisions
Homework
Add analytics for at least three important user actions.
This is where the app starts becoming a product rather than just a project.
Week 5: Build the right thing
A lot of apps do not fail because the code is broken. They fail because the product is unfocused.
This week centers on product judgment.
Topics
- identifying the core value of the app
- deciding who the product is for
- cutting features ruthlessly
- simplifying the main promise
- deciding what matters now versus later
Homework
Remove, simplify, or redesign one unnecessary feature and clarify the main user journey.
This is often uncomfortable, but it is one of the most important skills in building something real.
Week 6: Make it real
Now the app needs to cross the line from interesting to credible.
For some students, that means pricing. For others, it means preparing for real users, setting up payments, or getting serious about onboarding and communication.
Topics
- when to monetize
- basic pricing logic
- setting up payments
- launch readiness
- writing clear onboarding and value communication
Homework
Create a simple pricing page, payment flow, or launch-ready explanation of the product.
This week forces students to answer a serious question: is this just an experiment, or is it trying to become something more?
Week 7: Launch and feedback
Students need to get out of their own heads and show the app to people.
That sounds obvious, but it is one of the hardest steps for creators. They wait too long, polish the wrong things, or avoid exposure because they do not feel ready.
This week is about motion.
Topics
- launching before you feel fully ready
- where to find early users
- gathering useful feedback
- separating signal from noise
- how to ask better questions after launch
Homework
Get the app in front of five real users and collect feedback.
At this stage, real-world contact matters more than theory.
Week 8: Iterate or kill
This final week teaches restraint and judgment.
Not every project deserves to keep going. Some should be doubled down on. Some should be repositioned. Some should be shut down cleanly so the builder can move on with insight instead of guilt.
Topics
- evaluating traction honestly
- identifying useful signs versus false hope
- deciding whether to continue, pivot, or stop
- avoiding sunk-cost thinking
- capturing lessons for the next build
Homework
Write a short postmortem and choose the next move.
This is a powerful ending because it reframes success. Success is not just keeping a project alive. Success is making a clear, informed decision.
A key feature: live app teardowns
One of the most valuable pieces of this class would be live teardowns.
Each week, the instructor reviews a handful of student apps and gives direct, practical feedback on:
- design
- clarity
- product flow
- technical rough edges
- what to fix next
This is often where taste gets transmitted.
Students do not just need information. They need to see how someone with stronger judgment looks at a product and decides what matters.