Lovable Micro Review

Following up from my prior blog post about AI toolchain, I’ve continued the experiment of giving AI a “one shot” prompt.  As I discussed in my prior blog, this isn’t an attempt to actually make a production grade SaaS product, it’s a test of the platform’s ability to produce running code somewhat independently.  This means that this is something of a “worst case” example but it shows the limits of what these platforms can do on their own.

For this attempt, I used Lovable.  At this point, Lovable, Replit and V0 are in a pretty tight market battle as shown by Google Trends data:

Lovable has made big strides over the past six months or so, passing V0 and challenging Replit.  This also matches my personal experience.  I am hearing about Lovable more and more from developers and other non-technical founders as a tool that they have had success with.  I gave it the same prompt as before, “Build an app that stack ranks issues in a GitHub repo based on user-defined criteria.” 

This is what it came up with:

The first prompt was very promising.  Notice that it assumes that I need to enter a GitHub API token and just puts it right there in the UI.  No need to put an environment variable, no hard coding.  Just copy/paste your token.

It also correctly masks the API token once entered which is great.

And then, SHAZAM!  It just works.

First time, one shot, working app.  Pretty impressive.  

No, the UX isn’t the most amazing UX I ever saw and no, this is not a production ready application.  However, it actually works and you can click on it.  From a one shot prompt.

Like V0, it also allows me to sync with GitHub or run it on Lovable’s infra:

So, what does this all mean to PM’s?

It means that you need to stop writing complex requirements.  Stop writing PRD’s.

Instead, write user stories and go directly to prototype.  Do not mess around with lengthy planning/debating/arguing over theoretical features or products.  Just go build a prototype and discuss that working prototype with the team. 

I cannot tell you how much easier it is to debate a feature or a product when you can actually see the thing running.  Why mess around writing a long complex document?  Just build the thing and play with it.  Your team will probably hate it.  That’s fine.  Take that input and change the prototype.  Fix it.  Iterate.  

Yes, you still need a designer.  There is no way the application above would pass muster with a software company like Cisco.  You will have to design a real UX that looks correct, uses the design language correctly, etc.  You will also want to have a deeper conversation about user journey which I haven’t talked about at all yet.

Yes, you still need engineering.  The application will need to be run in production.  It will need to be secure, it will still need all the things that a proper SaaS application needs.  If you are just fooling around with a passion project, sure, go ahead.  But if you are actually running a business or building a business you’ll need someone to ensure that the app is written correctly, can be supported in production, can scale, is secure, etc. etc. etc.  All the important things that eng does still need to be done.

However.

You don’t need a massive team.

Is there such a thing as a single person Unicorn startup?  No.  Will there be single person startups in the future?  Yes, I think so.  Can you do this now?  Doesn’t seem like it.

Going forward, I am going to continue in this theme and see how far I get.  Where will I run into walls?  What functions are easily automatable?  What works today?  What is just hype?

Let’s find out.