🌊 Founder Vibe Coding Stack: Building a YC Admissions Calculator (Live Session) | Alex Vaughtton (@NocodeHackers)

“Tools don’t matter if you don’t ship fast”

This week, I sat down with Alex Vaughtton, founder of NocodeHackers, to break down how he prototypes AI products, ships workflows, and teaches no-code like a product dev stack.

We riffed on early no-code days, tool overkill, agent automation, and built a YC admissions calculator live: scraping data, training a custom assistant, and deploying it in minutes.

Alex has been ahead of the curve for years, and this episode is loaded with practical stuff for founders trying to go from 0→1 fast.

What you’ll learn

* Why most MVPs fail before launch (and how to shortcut that)

* How to pick the right tool without getting lost in the noise

* What “prompting the prompt” really means in AI workflows

* Why founders should automate (a lot) before hiring

* How to build a working AI app without writing a line of code, live demo

5 key takeaways

* Solve the hairy problem first: Alex tackles the hard logic first (e.g. lead routing), then wires UI, most founders do this backwards.

* The prompt is the product: He uses lovableprompts.app to iterate system prompts until the agent behaves like a real teammate.

* Start with output, not architecture: His builds begin with the end result. Lovable + Airtable delivers working apps before any design is touched.

* No-code ≠ MVP stack: His tools ship full LMSs, onboarding flows, and agents for real clients, not just prototypes.

* Depth > tool hopping: He picks one stack, goes deep, and builds reps. They work because he’s mastered it, not because it’s perfect.

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