Think about all the products that never got built. Not because they were bad ideas, but because they felt too expensive to even start. Even the smallest product often requires weeks of design, engineering, and polish. And when the outcome is uncertain, it’s hard to justify that investment. So the idea gets written down, put on a list, and usually never comes back. That’s how most innovation fades away. It’s not usually failure that stops new ideas, but inertia. Most ideas aren’t proven wrong—they just never get tested at all. Why Ideas Die Why Ideas Die People tend to imagine innovation as a process of bold bets and brilliant breakthroughs. In reality, it’s closer to trial and error. Out of a hundred experiments, most won’t matter. But the rare one that works pays for all the rest. The problem is simple: if the cost of trying is high, you attempt fewer things. And when you attempt fewer things, you reduce the odds of stumbling onto something valuable. This is why so many startups end up conservative. They have ideas they’d love to test, but they know the hidden costs. A “quick prototype” turns into a three-week sprint. Then you need design resources, backend integration, QA. Suddenly, what was supposed to be a small test feels like a full product cycle. At that point, you skip it. And skipping becomes the default. The Vibe Coding Shift The Vibe Coding Shift Vibe coding changes this equation. It lowers the cost of trying close to zero. Instead of weeks of planning and building, you can try an idea in hours. Sometimes in minutes. You don’t need a big team. You don’t need a roadmap. You don’t even have to be sure the idea is good. The point isn’t to predict success; it’s to make it cheap enough to find out. This small shift changes how you think. Instead of asking, “Is this worth weeks of work?” you ask, “Is this worth an afternoon?” The answer flips from no to yes. Suddenly, those fragile, uncertain ideas you used to avoid become worth exploring. “Is this worth weeks of work?” “Is this worth an afternoon?” Cheap Failure, Valuable Success Cheap Failure, Valuable Success Most of these experiments will still fail. But that’s fine. The failures are now cheap. And the rare successes are just as valuable as before. The effect is multiplicative. More attempts lead to more learning. More learning means you get better at spotting which ideas might work. And every additional attempt increases the chance of stumbling onto an outlier. Think about how many major products started as small, uncertain experiments: Gmail began as a side project, Slack grew out of a failed game, Twitter started as a hackathon idea inside a podcasting company. If those teams had needed months and big budgets just to test, those products might never have existed. Innovation’s Metabolism Innovation’s Metabolism The hidden value of vibe coding isn’t just speed; it’s about increasing the pace of progress. When it’s easier to try new things, you can run more experiments. And the more experiments you run, the more likely you are to find breakthroughs. This doesn’t guarantee success. But it guarantees more chances at success. And in innovation, more chances is everything. more chances Most people overestimate the importance of being right and underestimate the importance of simply trying often enough. Vibe coding shifts the focus back where it belongs: on the number of attempts. The Future of Product Creation The Future of Product Creation Innovation has always been a numbers game. Out of thousands of ideas, a handful matter, and one or two change everything. What vibe coding does is give us more numbers to play with. It expands the space of what’s possible by making the cost of trying negligible. The result won’t be a world where every idea works, but a world where far more ideas get a chance to exist. And sometimes, one of those extra attempts is the one that changes everything.

Vibe Coding: Lowering the Cost of Trying

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