018 - Vibe Building

The Good Stuff, with Pete and Andy - Episode 18: Building and Shipping

Hosts: Pete and Andy (recorded at City Beach, Perth - the van is back!)

Episode Overview: A follow-up to their accountability session from last week, Pete and Andy report back on actually shipping products to completion. This episode covers their successes with Fat Controller and Hype Man, explores new development workflows with Claude Code, and discusses the evolution of AI-assisted coding practices.

• Follow-up from last week's therapy session about finishing projects
• Pete releases Fat Controller 20 minutes before recording
• Andy gets Hype Man operational as an autonomous CMO
• The importance of shipping something people can actually use and pay for

• Built to solve Pete's timezone posting problem on Nostr
• Features: GIF support, satellite CDN integration, secure keychain storage (Mac only)
• Evolved from local-only to supporting remote signers for hosted version
• Redesigned signing architecture for better remote compatibility
• Released as open source with value-for-value model

• Andy's first official week on Nostr - hasn't felt compelled to check Twitter
• More invigorating and motivating environment
• Zap payments add meaningful interaction layer
• Less negative energy compared to Twitter/X

• Multi-agent system that extracts insights from podcast transcripts
• Creates and publishes social media content automatically
• Iterative improvement process: removed research agent, added review agent
• Cost-constrained testing with DeepSeek, upgraded to Claude for better output
• Reflection agents as key pattern for improving AI output quality

• Claude Code excelling at small, targeted changes
• Cursor better for complex, orchestrated implementations
• Claude Code's agentic loops provide better multi-step problem solving
• Both tools serve different phases of the development process

• Mac Mini as dedicated AI development server with 24/7 availability
• Terminal-based workflows accessible from phone via voice transcription
• Menu-driven system for common development tasks
• Segregated environment philosophy: give AI full access to designated machines
• Mobile coding: voice-to-terminal transcription enabling "vibe coding" from anywhere

• Three modes: drunk idea capture, sober editing, drunk coding
• Need for seamless idea-to-implementation pipeline
• Tutorial mode: AI explaining reasoning behind architectural decisions
• Balancing speed vs learning in AI-assisted development

• Danger of spending more time optimizing AI workflows than building actual products
• "Sharpening the axe forever" - when process improvement becomes procrastination
• Finding balance between efficiency and productivity

• Debate: Transform existing businesses vs. build AI-native competitors
• Unit economics advantage of AI-native companies
• Venture funding opportunities for dramatically improved cost structures
• Private equity interest in AI transformation strategies

• Weekend project to replace Screen Studio subscription
• Real-time vs post-processing architecture decisions
• Part of broader strategy to reduce SaaS subscriptions and build local tools
• Working prototype with keyboard shortcuts and lightweight toolbar interface

• Vision for idea-to-prototype pipeline
• Speed Run workshop concept: build entire company in one day
• Integration of existing tools (Pipeline, Wingman, Claude Code) into cohesive workflow
• Vibe startups: from idea to launched product with full departments