The Existential Crisis of Product Development: Yeah, I also tried Lovable. Here's what I learned

Hey there! I recently got the opportunity to try out Lovable at work, so I did. And it got me thinking. Here’s my thinking:

Philosophical Question: Do we need to reinvent the design process now, when we can prompt a decent, workable UI faster than we can wireframe a poor one?

Well, the short answer is no. The longer answer is: Yes, it will never be the same again.

Reflection one - the golden era of ideas

Coding stuff is now cheap. For the first time since “hello world,” it’s actually cheaper to build digital products than it is to sort out what to build. We can now generate a ton of (soon-to-be) pretty workable code basically for free.

With a couple of Claude and Lovable tokens, a normally gifted person with a laptop is now your potential product team.

This is the main change I see coming:

Good ideas now beat execution muscle. Why? Because execution is no longer the critical bottleneck.

Imagine: The golden era of good ideas is finally here.

Reflection two - The UX/dev ratio

Good ideas on what to build are the new bottleneck. This is great news for anyone in the business field of identifying the right problem to solve.

Developers will soon need to hand over their superhero capes to service designers and researchers.

My working hypothesis is that resource allocation will need to shift this way within product teams.

The one normally gifted person as your new product team might maintain the same velocity as your previous team when it comes to pushing things to production.

However, sorting out what to build still needs to be done. So one developer working together with four designers is probably what a strong product team will look like in the future, rather than the other way around.

Reflection three - The new problem

Someone once said, smart people with AI at hand will become even smarter. Less smart people with AI tools at hand will not come across as any smarter at all.

It was me, I said that.

It’s quite easy to tell the difference between: “AI did the task for me,” and “I did the task, and AI helped me do it faster and better.”

Designers, listen up. This is the shift we’ve been waiting for, you now have the chance to make a real difference.

But you have to watch out. It’s very, very easy to fall into the trap of vibe-coding cool stuff in a linear process. These AI tools are addictive, like YouTube Shorts, so make sure to use them wisely.

And for goodness’ sake - stick to the process you already know. Start by identifying a problem; this is what makes you and your competence valuable - even more going forward.

When everyone can prompt out a product concept during their lunch break, the prompt that actually solves a real problem wins.

Reflection four - After you know your problem

The design process is not linear. It never was - and it never should be. You need to ideate a shitload of solutions to ensure you move forward with the least crappy one. Yes, that’s how it’s done.

With a tool like Lovable, it’s very easy to skip the divergent parts of the process and just go for the solutions your AI suggests. Don’t.

Make sure to do your Crazy Eights, miniature sketches, and Lightning Decision Jams. Do it together with our new AI friend, do it on a napkin, do it in a regular sprint. Just make sure you do it.

Reflection five - working in the same tool

The traditional product development cycle is in crisis - and perhaps it’s long overdue. I’m seeing a shift where product managers are now attempting to visualising an entire product by “vibe coding”- out the core concept from scratch alongside 15 key stakeholders in a single two-hour workshop.

What’s the potential value in this chaos?

Surprisingly, quite a lot.

The real strength lies in the power of direct collaboration within a single, simple visualization tool, one easy enough for anyone to immediately jump in and contribute to a concept. A way of understanding each other better. Pen and paper 2.0.

Just my humble reflections for now.

Keep shipping,
Over and out,

Gunnar

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