011: Vibe Coding Collective with Dan Porder and Sofiia Matsiutsia

Welcome to the AI Applied Fluency Podcast. I'm your host Robert Moran, and this is the show where we strip away the noise around artificial intelligence and talk about what actually matters. Whether you're a tech pro, a business leader, or just AI curious, this podcast helps you sound smart without getting lost in the weeds. Let's get fluent. With us today in the studio, Dan Porter and Sophia Matsusya, welcome. Thanks so much. Hey everyone. Hey, so you're the co-founders of the Vibe Quaters Collective. Who'd like to start off and just tell us a little bit where that idea came from and how you got started? Yeah, I could share a little bit. So I'm an AI engineer and data scientist in my day job. A technical co-founder of a startup. And I've just been very interested in Vibe coding for quite a while. And it's been, it was a sort of interesting journey, seeing more and more people be able to build software. I wanted to kind of spread that idea and talk to other people about it, but wasn't really sure of the forum. And then last August, I was kind of feeling a bit lonely and wanted to make friends. And I was new to London. And so I just started this little meetup. And at first, it was like eight people around the table. And we were all just working on our own projects, having some beers chatting about Vibe coding. The next week, we did it. And I met Sophia. And we started to talk. And we were like, maybe this could be something a little bigger. And it's been a crazy trajectory since then, where the third week after that, we had a reporter from Microsoft's Internal Magazine there and a photographer. And pretty soon, we were talking with sponsors, like 11 labs, lovable and spreading to different countries. And yeah, it's been, it's been a big journey. And we, I think we really just want to spread the message about Vibe coding that people who are non-technical, who are outside of the software world altogether, can build things that you can be a hobbyist coder, just like if you're painting a painting. Some people do it for museums. Some people paint in their garage on the weekend. And both are fine. And software is no different. And yeah, we want to spread that message. Yeah. How about you, Sophia? What do you remember from the beginnings? So it is actually an interesting story. I remember I joined firstly Vibe coding collective on a day when there was a London tube strike. And I wasn't supposed to go there. So, but I was so curious about just Vibe coding in general. It started to become a big thing. And I'm a designer. I'm digital, sorry, interface designer. So for me, being able to Vibe code something is like a new press just because now I could literally create something, not just create the design. I'm not a technical person. So I wanted to join. So I ride my bike bicycle for like 30 minutes during the rain, during September rain. And yeah, I met a lot of new people with the beer. It was such a nice atmosphere because very often in London on technical events, I felt like I'm an outsider of this dominant tech culture. And what I should just do is like sell myself, exchange link in contacts, you know, although this vibe. So with dance event, I felt finally that I could just talk to people, ask questions, no one will judge me. And that's why it's probably like started in in this particular way through our personal belief how community should be built. And just with every new event, we got more and more signups. Now we kind of have a huge waiting list for 11 loves events. I would say it's like 120 people on the waiting list, which is kind of crazy. I would not know what to do with that. But I'm sure we will be able to tackle it somehow. Yeah. And I know in terms of like a participation, you've got a number on the website. What do you think the number is now in terms of number? There's thousands of people across different channels. It's hard to track. We have also hundreds in a WhatsApp group and it's sort of people from different countries talking about this topic. But there's also events going on in these different countries, pretty frequently, some of which were very involved in others. We've sort of let other hosts kind of take the reins. I think like Sophia was saying, we imagine this as this sort of distributed community of people sharing and vibe coding. And it's also it's like the right time for that, I think, just in this world of AI and automation and the robots slowly taking over. What we really need is like people coming together over a beer sitting down and playing with fun tools. And it seems like people are enjoying that all over in a kind of cross-cultural way. Yeah. One of the things there was a book many years ago called Future Shot by Alvin Toffler. One of the principles about the future, he said it's going to be high tech and high touch that the more technology advances, the more people are going to want the human connection. And I think that that perfectly illustrates what's happened the way the growth of life was collective. Yeah. I started it because like I said, I was feeling lonely and I think a lot of people come to these events because of that because they want social connection because they feel disconnected. And they don't want to sit down in an office under bright lights and be lectured to. They want to collaborate. Yeah. In terms of the growth, so the initial group was in London, but now you're in eight countries. I've got the list here, unless somebody wants to round them off. Maybe you could guess if yeah, I don't remember. I'll yeah, I think it's spreading organically. So we have kind of regular events which happens most often in Edinburgh, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Berlin and from time to time in Islamabad. But when we go somewhere with Dan, we also trying to do what we call pop-ups. So for example, Dan did pop-ups in New York, I did one in Osaka. Also, we will do one soon in Ukraine in my home country and we hope to expand even more because people just join in our events. Very often they're travelers. For example, in Osaka, we got a lot of digital nomads, for example. And people were just looking for some contacts. And we met people there on our events and they become very much interested in that. So when they go back to their home country, for example, or where they work, they want to do something like that as well just because they need a community. So first of all, it's about community. Also talking to my friends in Warsaw, who's looking for communities as well, just because he relocated recently. And he's a little bit shy in that. But we're trying to support them on a journey of looking for a venue, how to talk to people, how to organize the community, how to encourage them to build something together. Because we learned a lot, I would say, from our experience and how people build together something. Because at the beginning, you can always struggle. You get a sitting on your table with many strangers. And you do not know even how to start. So the host of the evening, he has a huge responsibility of kind of welcoming those people, showing them this is a safe place. We'll not judge you. And you should not judge yourself as well, basically. You hear just to learn from each other to exchange just knowledge. So that's why I think we are gunically spreading across the world. We do not have enough people in our team right now. We constantly welcoming new faces. And those holes are interested in spreading the same idea. Yeah. Yeah. Well, did anyone enter that? Which was the question? Just about like the growth and why it's so popular. Yeah. I think we've done a lot of great work. Of course, Sophia has especially done a lot of amazing work in spreading this. But also, I think we've come at the right time. I think vibe coding was the Collins dictionary word of the year recently. I think we're living through the AI revolution. There's a lot of talk of like, oh, AI is replacing software engineers. I think it's true in certain ways. But also, we have more software engineers than ever. I meet at our groups, we meet chefs and photographers and swimming coaches who are now like moon lighting as software engineers. And some of them actually launching apps and stuff. And I think like a billion new software engineers have just come online. And we kind of have a community around that topic that wants to discuss it in this kind of playful, sort of artistic, open-ended way, which seems to be maybe something lacking in the conversation. Yeah. And that's a great point. I also want to make sure that people are listening can get in touch. So if you want to get more information, the website is vibe coders dot global. That's vibe coders dot global. Or on x, please go to v coders global. And follow like and subscribe to the latest and greatest x channel that you guys have. So one of the things from that website, from vibe coders dot global, you make a couple great points. One, it's not only for tech folks, right? And the second one is low barrier, but high impact. No prerequisites, no gatekeeping, right? All are welcome, regardless of their background. And one of the ideas is to learn from the room. Those three key pillars would want to be like to talk about those pillars and why they mean so much to the group. Well, I could maybe start on the that anyone is welcome. I think we really believe and the radical inclusivity of technology and bridging the digital divide. And in any way, we can. And I think AI is a truly democratizing tool in coding and beyond. It's also an accessibility tool. If English is not your first language, now you can write a great email if you don't know how to code. Now you can build software. And yeah, we want to invite everybody into that world. Maybe Sophia, you could talk about the peer learning thing. Yeah, so just to repeat myself, not a technical person, I'm a designer. So I do interfaces. And for me, I was really looking for a space where I could be wrong. And it would be like a safe container for me to make mistakes. That's why in wipecoding collective, again, like we do not judge. We do not try to measure your success. We're not trying to push you to create an application for the future which you could sell. Of course, some people are trying to do that. But first of all, it's about your self expression. First of all, it's about your attempts, your curiosity. Because like, take any AI application or any other. They have updates during the week, like 10, 20 times. You feature a launch. You feel anxious in that world. And you feel lost. And too many things are going around you. Everyone is posting on Twitter how they're launching there in your application. And you're like feeling like outsider, at least I do. And I bet that a lot of people could relate to this experience as well. But when you join our community, what you will feel from others, that they have the same experience. So you could guess that there is some bubble on social media. And everyone is trying to follow that bubble. But in reality, actually, you could just relax a little bit and explore from others what they're trying to do and learn from that experience as well. So yeah, I would say that we are kind of building community in a way that we were looking for that safe space. And this community become our own safe space. And I think nobody is really an expert in this area. Like, it's not like there's going to be people who have been doing this 20 years. And you will be a complete outsider if you encounter them. Everyone's sort of discovering it together. I think even with these models and systems in the way they work, there's capabilities baked into it that even the top experts are unaware of and finding out. And it is completely possible for a teacher or a parent to walk into one of our groups, play around with the tool and discover something that no one has before. And then teach everybody else around them. Yeah, one of the things, again, from the website, it's just two hour hackathons, right? So they're all day, right? It's not a long time commitment, right? It's just two or three hours. Are they evening weekends? When do you typically have them? So most often it's weekdays evening after work. We start at 7 p.m. Yeah, we run it for two hours because most often we also have a additional one hour of people talking to each other, sharing what they have built. Yeah, so we end like it 10 p.m. basically. We also tried weekends hackathon, but because we very much rely on the free space, which some pubs, bars, or community centers could give us, weekdays are easier for us. And also on Sunday morning, you better spend time outdoors rather than near your laptop. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And one of the things too, I just want to quickly mention this too, that in terms of new communities, you actually have a little protocol on here, how to start a new chapter. And I thought maybe there might be helpful. There's a couple of points where I can say them or somebody want to let them know how easy it is to start or inquire about starting a new chapter. Yeah, then you want to answer this? Yeah, I mean, we are willing to onboard people to start chapters in their own cities all the time. We have lots of requests. So there's a little bit of a backlog right now. Small team, many people wanting to do it. But yeah, we can provide a framework. We can provide resources on how to get started. We have lots of materials. And we have a lot of experience. The first few times we did this, we made a lot of mistakes. And we learned a lot of things. And we also had feedback. We would always say, come and give us feedback. And people would say, well, I didn't like this at all. We have different points. And we would adjust things. And so we have this refined approach that we can share with others. And also, we have sponsors who can help provide free tooling at events. Yeah. Yeah. If you reach out to us, we're always open. And then should we do that through VimeCode or start a global right on the website? Yes. Yes. OK. So one of the things I noted on the page, so you said, when you first pop up, support your folks, and then under lead community, there's a wonderful statement which says, you're no longer running an event. You're leading a movement in your city. And that just captivates me. I recently started something here in Boston called the Solo Founders Project. And with the Solo Founders, the manual I'm using is called tribes. My Seth Gordon, are you aware of this? No. But looks interesting. Looks interesting. It's very interesting. But he says that. He says, basically, the world needs more leaders. And he actually uses that language about starting a movement. And he's got a great thing. And I think you're really doing a great job already, even without knowing about the book, but the idea make it easy to contact the leaders of the community, but also make it easy for the community to get in touch with each other. And the WhatsApp group has been phenomenal. It's a wonderful traffic on there all the time. There's one to say that. Yeah. Yeah, I think you wrote that line, Sophia. We were talking earlier about that leadership. Oh, yeah. What do you mean, specifically? Well, I think this has been an interesting journey for us, figuring out how to sort of lead a community. This is-- I led a creative meetup community that is somewhat international in the past and had some experience with that. But I think this has been a whole other level trying to figure out how to operate this in a way that is sort of a movement that is grassroots, that has people sort of working independently, but is still cohesive, still shares a single vision. I think also trying to get an understanding of how we want to contribute to the world. Like I know, at the core of me, that exposing people to vibe coding and sort of building a world where anyone makes software and software sort of made for us is a good thing. I genuinely believe that, but how to make that a thing through my community. That has involved a lot of child and air. Yeah, yeah. I would add here that then experience with these previous communities really much inspired me, because before that I hadn't gotten experience with leading a community and so on and so on. So kind of jumping into all of that was very much unexpected for me. But I think maybe in my soul was looking for something like that and also being a next part in the London, is a huge city for me. And you do not have a lot of connections, you do not have a lot of friends. So through this community, I basically built my own network. I met amazing people, then met amazing people. And now amazing people, met amazing people, which is also amazing. But yeah, just to add here that I got so many leadership skills, which I would not be able to cut from corporate job. And that's why, again, like you could create something in a safe space. You could do mistakes, but the price of those mistakes, not that huge. And because you work with real people, you could feel how you could behave, you could apply your empathy for that. Because you most probably know how to talk to them. And if you believe in webcoding as a future opportunity for everyone, it would mean that hard actually to apply your skills here. - Yeah. I'd like to turn the conversation briefly to the idea of sponsorship. And one of the things you mentioned on the site is that, why partner with us? Because the people are builders, not browsers. The people that come to these events are people who actually ship projects it, very real skill, and also custom solutions, right? That you'll work with the goals of the sponsor. Can you tell us a little bit about some of the sponsors you have now and how they came into the fold? - Yeah, I mean, so we, you know, our most recent and most committed sponsors, I think lately have been 11 labs and lovable. But we have, on our site, we have a bunch of other sponsors we've worked with, we worked with the partner, Osaka, I can't remember all of them, maybe some of the, yeah, remembers all the details, but we've, you know, people use these tools in our events and they get excited about them, they create with them. I think it's a great way to expose people to these different technologies. And, yeah, I don't know, maybe you want to say more on this stuff, yeah? - Yeah, so for example, we've learn loves. and I'm in love with the. not only build a tool which help you to create a genetic voice, but also they have a lot of features for music creation, sounds creation where game developers might be interested in or people who create digital music, whatever. So, and because we do have very huge range of people, we're not only focusing on developers. For those type of companies, again, like Levin Labs are lovable, it's much more interesting to engage in this wild range community rather than just being focused on specifically technical people. So, we have some companies who create a tool for vibe coders or genie possibilities and trying to work with them in a way to define their own goals. Like, what do they want to emphasize specifically through their feature? And based on their needs, we develop the strategy for the night basically, we develop some challenges, we focus very much on challenges actually. Just most often when you go to Hakaton, they either give you super wide topic. So, you spend like, I don't know, 30% of your time just trying to figure out what you should build. We're trying to narrow down people. So, when we do a sponsored event, we talk to the company to understand what are their goals with their objectives. What specifically they want to highlight, for example, tomorrow we'll have an event with Levin Labs and we'll talk only about music creation. So, how to create music with a specific moment in that and et cetera, et cetera. But also we do have companies who we partner with and they just want to spread the information about themselves among people. So, it's very much depends. And we always open for new collaborations. Yeah. - Something I would add to this too is that we, I think we have a special sort of demographic of hobbyists and we were told a couple times, oh, don't promote your group to hobbyists, hobbyists aren't professionals, they don't have money, this and that. I think it's the complete opposite. Like, people spend a huge amount, maybe even like most of their money sometimes on hobbies. The hobby market is so big. I mean, including in software, if you look at like video games and stuff like that. And I think that's untapped. I think a lot of vibe coding companies are aware of this, are exploring it certainly our sponsors are. And yeah, we have a lot of people who come to have fun who come to make something just for themselves who want to learn how to use these tools so they can play with them with their kids. There's a lot of these use cases that people will buy subscriptions for that I think are still a bit untapped. - Yeah, that's a good point. Briefly, there's also something for companies on the website talks about team building and custom sessions. Would want to be like to talk a little bit about that. - Yeah, it's very interesting. You'll never think that you could do to building this vibe coding, but actually when you wipe code in a group, like for example, three or four people, you create a strong bond, a bond to mount each other. And this is a really funny way, especially sometimes we explore games on our events and computer vision games, for example. So it might be very fun when you create something with your colleague, which relate to slicing fruits with your hands and your camera. So it's a really fun way to spend time and learn from each other, learn from your customer success manager or from your financial manager and so on and so on. So you could just even try it with your friends if it is a better weather outside. - And we're starting to get into also more training style events or running our sort of hackathons internally for companies because I think a lot of companies are realizing that upscaling is needed, that designers will have to become engineers, engineers will have to become designers that people need to learn how to collaborate around these kinds of technologies. And we're not claiming to be experts again, nobody is an expert, but what we do know how to do is run a session around this topic, which I guess. - It's something that you saw. - Just to add here is also very important that nowadays a lot of people could be scared of AI and scared of applying new technology. It actually had been always like that. So when telephone was invented, but Alexander Grekham people used to think that there is a ghost on the other line and they're talking to a ghost. And the same with Genie AI, just like it's, we're trying a little bit scared of new technology, scared of new things, something we change our typical day and et cetera. So through these games and through engaging people into creating something simple from the beginning and moving forward with more complex stuff, we're trying to show them that this is not like a deal machine, it will not steal your job, it could help you actually. In a way, if you know how to talk to it, how to use it. So that's why companies are really interested right now in showing to their employees that this thing has a lot of opportunities. And when I talk to designers as well, they feel a little bit oppressed, I would say, and by this technical world, that they should learn to might, they could be substituted by AI fully. But after, so I could exchange with them some ideas, what they could start with, or for example, Taylor, how they could use cloth right now for their design task. And after they try something, what we recommend to them, they come back and they're like, oh my God, now I feel that they have much more time for radiation, for research, rather than just like pollution pixel, because Jenny, I could polish pixel for me actually. - Right, yeah. We're coming just to the end. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give the contact info for a vibe coding collective. But then I'm also gonna turn it over if you'd like to give your personal contact here. If you've got a website or a LinkedIn that you'd like people to know, I mean, you can say it out loud and I'll make sure to put it in the show notes. So once again, if you want to get in touch with the organization, it's vibe coding collective and the website is vibe coders.global. And on X, it's v coders global. That's v coders global on X. So, okay, would you like to go first with your website? - Yeah, sure. Again, like I do take commissions for personal website, also work with SaaS companies to help them build dashboards in a useful way. Very good at research. So if you feel like your company or your early stage startup is on the stage, when it's kind of ready, but design doesn't look like you want to share it with your mother or someone else. Just reach out to me. I'm happy to help you and set up the best user experience. And you could find me at M-A-T-S-I-U-T-S-A. or linkidinsafia.com or linkidinsafia.com. Yeah, feel free to reach out. - Yeah, thank you. - Yeah, probably best place to reach me is LinkedIn, Dan Porter. It sounds simple. It's P-O-R-D as in dog ER. (laughs) And reach out to me if you want to talk about vibe coding or AI, 'cause I'm always excited to do that. - Great. Well, you've been listening to the AI applied fluency podcast. We talked today with Dan Porter and Sophia Matusia. And so glad you were here. Hope you come back again and let's stay fluent. Bye-bye. - Thanks, Alex. - Thank you, bye.