Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:40:46 · Elena Verna, Lenny Rachitsky
So there has to be that enablement of go try things. And because of our velocity, if you fail, it's not a big deal. We'll just pivot. We'll go... We'll get we'll get through it. We are not here to just win all the time. [00:40:59] S0: On the hiring of these incredible people, as we all know, it's very hard to hire people these days, especially the best. What have you seen Lovable does differently or does well that helps them recruit the best? [00:41:10] S1: Yes. Especially recruit in Stockholm. I mean, the main office here is in Stockholm. We're asking a lot of people to relocate, which is a no small feat. Now, some of it makes it easy because of how much hype we created around our product. People want to come work for us. They're reaching out to us. They're saying, I love what you're doing. I want to join it. So that we have a cheat code to it because like we have most of the time when we reach out to somebody, they say, yeah, I would love to explore. So building that product that is highly lovable also creates a really great recruiting brand for you as well. So make sure that there's multiple benefits to that. But second of all, we do a lot of trials for people. So trial work to see [00:41:55] S0: them A work in
00:41:55 · Lenny Rachitsky, Elena Verna
[00:41:55] S0: them A work in [00:41:57] S1: trial to see them in action for a couple of days. We pay them as part of the work trial. We have some probation periods that we start people on because this company is not for everybody. As I said in the podcast in the beginning, the pace here is insane. I went on a vacation for the first time. So I've been here for six months. I went on vacation for ten days. I came back, I felt like I needed to onboard from the beginning. Like everything changed. And when I'm in it, I feel like it's an evolution. But the fact that just being gone for ten days, it feels like a complete revolution in the company. It's that piece is just not for everybody. And that's okay because I'm very firm believer that there's different cultures and different environments that the best fit for different personalities and different people. So we try to be very upfront with how things are and how chaotic they are. And we prioritize people that don't look for clarity. We can create clarity out of chaos because it is absolutely chaotic otherwise. And if we start to look for people that can explain it to us, that's the only way that we can succeed. [00:43:06] S0: The way you describe going on vacation and feeling very different, it feels like when you don't see your kid for a few days and they're just like completely different, you're like, how did you grow up so fast in three days? [00:43:15] S1: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
00:43:15 · Elena Verna, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:43:15] S1: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. [00:43:17] S0: Let me try to summarize the growth levers that you're finding is... Are working. And I'm trying to think about this from the perspective of an AI startup trying to think about, hey, shoot. How do we grow faster? What is Lovable figured out? So it feels like number one is just build something lovable, something that blows people's socks off, but also in a market that is growing that people want to pay money for. Like, you can build something lovable that nobody actually cares about, that that there isn't much money going to this space. There's no tide pushing it forward, and it won't work. [00:43:46] S1: I call it minimum lovable product. Like, it shouldn't be minimum viable product anymore. Viability is left in... Or back in twin... 20 tens. Now it's minimum lovable product. That's the only thing that matters. [00:43:59] S0: I love how these AI tools are letting us, you know, like PMs have always had these, what are they, smoke door tester, like, what's the term? Just like, or it's not a real product. Painted door? [00:44:10] S1: Painted Painted door, yeah. [00:44:11] S0: It is. Yeah. And and it's like, okay, we just have a landing page. There's nothing there. Now AI makes it easier to do that, and it's like more full featured.
00:44:11 · Lenny Rachitsky, Elena Verna
[00:44:11] S0: It is. Yeah. And and it's like, okay, we just have a landing page. There's nothing there. Now AI makes it easier to do that, and it's like more full featured. [00:44:18] S1: Yeah. Well, it's the feedback cycle is just completely collapsed. You can go from idea to some product that is functioning to user feedback within a day if you want to. I mean, depending on how fast that you wanna run or how complex the product is. For missions, it took us a couple of weeks to vibe code it to the point where... Because we also... I have a full time Bypecoder on my team. He's amazing. So like he wanted to create videos, like he did a bunch of designs for it too. So we he took him a couple of weeks. We're testing it now and then we'll put it in the product. But it's a completely different development life cycle. Before, it would just take so many more steps from user research to the design sprints, to prioritizing on engineering roadmap, to build something minimal and viable to actually test to the little long testing cycles. Now it's just like, boom, let's go. It's taken us could have taken us a day. We just decided to take a couple of weeks to get all of the video pieces correct. [00:45:18] S0: I saw you launch this on LinkedIn. To me, it looked like a full product launch. It is interesting to hear, this is just a prototype. [00:45:26] S1: Yes. It's... [00:45:27] S0: Minimum lovable Minimum lovable. I gotta ask, you have this, you said you had a full time vibe coder. What the heck is this? Is this like an engineer or is this something else? What is a full time vibe coder?
00:45:38 · Elena Verna
[00:45:38] S1: Great question. This is a new job role that is actually popping up here and there. It's absolutely fascinating to watch this development because I see vibe coding as a skill being added to a lot of job descriptions for designers, for product managers, for marketers, which I think is a really interesting shift. Finally, Excel can move over. Like we have a new skill to add that is super empowering and not three years old, but type coder. So his name is Lazar and he actually was chief of staff in his previous role. So he's not technical at all. He's self taught in technical aspects of it, but he was very early on in the vibe coding wave. So he learned a lot about it. He was a user of all of the vibe coding tools, Lovable included. And when I was coming into the role, I'm like, I have so many projects that I will vibe code myself. So I run this woman only hackathon she builds. I vibe coded the first version of that site and like and submission process for applications. And then other people came in and started building on top of it. But I've I've coded, but then like, I don't have enough time sometimes because I need to run around and I want to push out so many different initiatives that I want to test in the market with our own products. So we connected on social. Like, you join us? And he joined us for part time. I make you bringing so much value. For example, we partnered with Shopify and he created a bunch of Shopify Lovable templates by coded for us. And it's been so helpful to have somebody like that that is just like pushing all of these things out. And he's an absolute expert. So he's teaching us all too of what is possible with Lovable because he's on the cutting edge of constantly pushing it to the limit. So I I really enjoy having that role, which I've never had before in my life and in my team.
00:47:31 · Lenny Rachitsky, Elena Verna
[00:47:31] S0: I'm not surprised. I've I've never heard of this role before as a real full time job. Do you think this is a thing people will start hiring for at non vibe coding companies? [00:47:41] S1: So I vibe code myself. So like I would put that as even as a skill on my on my resume. Now, it took me a while to figure out. By the way, like, everybody is like, oh, you just go in like... And it all happens automatically. It takes you a couple of iterations, couple of projects until like you know, okay, this is how I need to translate it, how I need to think about it. But for me, it's when I started scaling of what I want to vibe code, that's where his value really came in. Because I'm like, okay, I understand what is possible. I know what needs to be achieved. And some of these apps, want to be almost full blown built because they're not going to get incorporated into the product anytime soon. They don't need to be. I'll just link to them from from our headers, so to speak. And he really accelerated that velocity for me. So once you get into by coding and you see its value within your organization, leaning into somebody like that just accelerates your velocity because it is like an engineer on your team. It's just they're not to me. He's his part his part technical, but they can be nontechnical if they're really good.