While that might be true for you, it's not at all true for me. If generic chatbots went away, no big deal. If Windsurf IDE + Sonnet 3.5 went away tomorrow, my prospects would look very different.
The last production code I wrote was over 20 years ago. I don't know React and TypeScript. I recently created a SaaS MVP using Windsurf/Sonnet/React/Refine.dev/Supabase in 8 days. We already have live humans excitedly using the product.
The SaaS product is a recreation of an app that I tried as a startup a few years ago, which never got to even this level of traction and failed. We failed for many classic reasons, but one of the main reasons was that we had no truly technical co-founder, and could only afford an off-shore dev. Iteration took around 24 hours. Using Windsurf, a product shmoe like myself can iterate in 2 minutes.
Of course we will have to get a real React dev on board if we start to get real traction, but the LLM tools allowed us to explore an opportunity that would not have existed without them.
Disclaimer: I happened to use Windsurf, but there are other options like Cursor, which you might have better luck with. I am not on Mac OS, so Cursor was not an option for me.
What remains to be seen if your venture (and others like it) will translate into hundreds of billions of new economy. That was the effect of the iPhone, cloud, and Google Search (analogies used in the article). That's the difference between a "new era" and a cool tool that could of (and should of) been built at university with enough funding to produce it for the public good.
My gut feeling is that this will play out like the dot-com bubble. There was definitely a bubble, it burst and many investors lost money, but the Internet did end up eating the world in the long run.
Congrats on the rapid MVP! Is it launched / publicly available? I'm in the same boat with modern front ends. Would like to see what the current LLMs can help with.
Thanks! It is not public yet. It's a b2b web app + browser extension. We currently have users in a friendly company testing it to replace their existing cumbersome Excel + Email/Teams workflow.
If you are in the same boat as me with modern front ends, come on in, the water's fine! I highly recommend using something like Refine.dev (YC S23) + Ant Design, or whatever is appropriate in your case. Giving a tool like Windsurf/Sonnet a much more narrow scope of options than just "React" is a huge win.
Even if you just started from a paid or free template for whatever language and framework you are targeting, it will greatly improve your chances of making something appealing, very quickly, using a tool like Windsurf.
The last production code I wrote was over 20 years ago. I don't know React and TypeScript. I recently created a SaaS MVP using Windsurf/Sonnet/React/Refine.dev/Supabase in 8 days. We already have live humans excitedly using the product.
The SaaS product is a recreation of an app that I tried as a startup a few years ago, which never got to even this level of traction and failed. We failed for many classic reasons, but one of the main reasons was that we had no truly technical co-founder, and could only afford an off-shore dev. Iteration took around 24 hours. Using Windsurf, a product shmoe like myself can iterate in 2 minutes.
Of course we will have to get a real React dev on board if we start to get real traction, but the LLM tools allowed us to explore an opportunity that would not have existed without them.
Disclaimer: I happened to use Windsurf, but there are other options like Cursor, which you might have better luck with. I am not on Mac OS, so Cursor was not an option for me.