Chapter 12
The Rise of Vibe Coding: When Anyone Can Build Anything
1: Building Websites in the Age of AI
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, I worked as a hosting sales and support agent at GoDaddy, the world’s largest web registrar and hosting company. It was my job to provide technical support to incoming callers, but also to consult on their accounts and ask questions that could identify pain points that could lead to up-sales. I often preferred to advise rather than sell, which made me not the best salesperson but a pretty decent consultant when needed. Since I worked at this company, a lot has changed about the way that people design and build websites and how they put them on the internet. We’ve gone from template-based, click-to-change website builders that GoDaddy still does under the Aero brand to Lovable-designed websites that are totally customized based on “vibe” or “live” coding—talking or typing to your computer.
For anyone unfamiliar, Lovable is a popular vibe coding platform that lets you build websites and applications simply by typing text or speaking commands. You start by telling the agent what you want built, and it generates the site or app based on your initial prompt and any instructions you provide. From there, it builds the project to spec, and through a chat interface, you can request changes until everything looks right. This conversational, AI-driven approach represents a profound shift from the old GoDaddy days, when creating a site meant painstakingly pointing and clicking to change every element or using tiny plus signs inside the builder to add components one by one.
The reason why this change is profound is that it gives the average person the ability to code websites and applications that used to take teams of people to build. If you wanted to launch your own web design agency, you could use Lovable’s web client-hosted and agent-based coding platform. And with zero design and programming skills, you’d be able to sell premium websites to people. Theoretically, though, they’d be able to design those websites themselves just by saying what they wanted. But as the saying goes, “Who has the time if you’re a busy business owner to vibe code a site?”
However, this raises an interesting question: Who is the Lovable platform really for, and who will its ultimate clientele be? Sure, you could target small to medium-sized business owners—restaurants, businesses, and other retail outlets—by offering a streamlined site-building tool. But the wider audience might be anyone creating content online, from TikTok and YouTube to Instagram Reels and even Snapchat. These creators often need different websites for different projects, and instead of juggling multiple tools for landing pages and full sites or hiring a development team, they could simply learn to use Lovable. With this platform, a small team could collaboratively build whatever site they need in the future. That’s a huge advantage in a world where content creators are constantly sharing, selling, and driving their audiences toward action.
2: Middle America to AI Entrepreneurship
Perhaps even more profound is the idea that Lovable gives anyone in Middle America Silicon Valley-level capabilities to create a professional website or application.
If they can accurately identify their audience’s pain points, they could develop a product or service and easily sell it through the platform. Think of AI-driven businesses like automated content creation services, personalized e-commerce shops, subscription-based learning platforms, or niche SaaS tools powered by AI—these are ventures that once required significant technical expertise but can now be launched by a single entrepreneur. In this sense, Lovable isn’t just for small to medium-sized businesses or content creators—it’s for entrepreneurs. It’s for anyone looking to start a web-based or app-based business and seize the newest opportunities in the AI-driven economy.
This is why I think Lovable is an important and consequential platform for everyone, from faculty to students, to learn from the perspective of a librarian. It gives you the ability to put anything that you can imagine online without needing to know any technical code. It also works faster than many of the website-building solutions that are available right now. In so many ways, I believe that Lovable is democratizing web and app development the way the word processor did document editing and creation. I think the opportunity will be profound when it comes to what it allows people from all backgrounds to be able to do. Anyone can publish a website or app now. The world hasn’t completely changed, if only because we’re in the early days of the AI age.
“There are a number of reasons for America’s success over nearly two and a half centuries, but much of the credit goes to the inventors, entrepreneurs, and innovators,” writes Steve Case, the founder of AOL, CEO of the investment firm Revolution, and author of The Rise of the Rest. He goes on, “Their tenacity, grit, perseverance, and creativity energized a new nation and saw it through many daunting challenges.” His book is about this idea that there are entrepreneurs who are springing up in other parts of the United States beyond San Francisco, New York, and Austin, and they are starting to emerge in places like Fargo, North Dakota; Boise, Idaho; and even Missoula, which is an amazingly creative and innovative art-focused college town located in Montana.
3: The Rise of Innovation Without Borders
While I was in graduate school at the University of Michigan from 2022 to 2024, I took a class in the urban planning school called “Technology Clusters and Smart Cities.” The course explored the history of Silicon Valley as an economic region with the critical infrastructure that enabled the technology entrepreneurship sector to flourish, leading to today’s goliath. It also drew comparisons to the Research Triangle in North Carolina—encompassing Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill—and examined how that region tried to replicate Silicon Valley in the South. The professor discussed the ways they succeeded and failed in positioning themselves as a yin to Silicon Valley’s yang. He talked about the different ways that the Research Triangle became more known for research and science than pure technology entrepreneurship or innovation.
In a conversation with an old friend who is a startup founder from the area, I learned that while the Research Triangle has a strong biotechnology presence, it still faces challenges with venture capital and investment—issues that plague many startup communities. Yet, there are numerous other startup ecosystems across the United States that most people overlook. Take Fargo, for example. It’s home to Bushel Inc., an agricultural technology startup that began by digitizing the scale tickets farmers receive when dropping off grain at elevators after harvest. Tools like these make it far easier to tackle regional challenges—such as agriculture and farming—that Silicon Valley paid less attention to because they didn’t come from these agrarian backgrounds.
What’s exciting is that anyone with a problem and a desire to solve it can now leverage platforms like Lovable—or its competitor, Base44—to build a technology startup wherever they are. While Lovable started as a website and app design tool, it has recently added features like a back-end hosting service for data storage and e-commerce capabilities that easily integrate with popular platforms. This opens up enormous opportunities for everyone. If you’re in Boise, Idaho, and have an idea for a new music festival or a tech startup focused on marriage proposals, you now have a powerful platform through live and vibe coding to bring your vision to life. These tools allow you to create professional, mobile-friendly websites and even convert them into apps.
From there, you can launch prototypes, gather feedback, iterate quickly, and refine your product. With the speed and flexibility of vibe coding, finding product-market fit becomes easier—simply by engaging with the people who use your platform.
How do libraries and librarians fit into this picture, you might ask? I recently came across a LinkedIn post from the Fargo Economic Development Corporation announcing that Moorhead, Minnesota, will soon open The Loop, a 48,000-square-foot facility combining a public library and a community center. It’s designed as a vibrant hub with meeting rooms, innovation spaces, and even an indoor walking track and playground. Alongside it will be Spark, an entrepreneurship center and accelerator funded by a $1 million grant. Spark will provide co-working spaces, mentorship, business tools, and even a podcast studio to help founders launch their ventures.
What struck me is that some of the most powerful tools these spaces—these imagination labs where ideas come to life—could leverage are vibe coding platforms like Lovable or Base44. These platforms enable anyone to go from zero to one in building an online presence quickly and easily. For entrepreneurs using Spark or community members at The Loop, this means they can prototype websites, launch e-commerce, and iterate on ideas without needing traditional technical skills. It’s a perfect example of how public library hubs can empower innovation in the intelligence age.
This is more than a technological shift; it’s actually a cultural one.
When libraries become gateways to entrepreneurship and innovation, they redefine their role in society. They are no longer just repositories of knowledge; they are engines of creativity and economic mobility. In the age of AI, the next Silicon Valley might not be a single geographic region but a network of local innovation hubs powered by imagination, accessible tools, and community support. If platforms like Lovable democratize development the way word processors democratized writing, then libraries and entrepreneurial centers like The Loop and Spark will be the catalysts that turn ideas into reality—anywhere, for anyone—helping the rest of us rise and build together.