Software for One: The Quiet Revolution in How We Build, Powered by Vibe Coding
Why the Most Powerful Apps You’ll Ever Use… Might Be the Ones You Build for Yourself
There’s a quiet revolution happening in software — and it doesn’t look like what we’re used to.
It’s not billion-dollar valuations. It’s not yet another “X for Y” startup.
It’s a journaling app that speaks your language. It's a dashboard that tracks your thoughts, not your KPIs. It's a tool that reflects your habits, goals, and mind.
This is Software for One — apps not built for mass adoption, but for personal use, clarity, and alignment.
Not optimized for growth. Just optimized for you.
Where the Phrase Comes From — and Why It Resonates
I first heard the term "Software for One" from Steph Smith on an a16z podcast. She described how AI enables individuals to build digital tools that are highly personalized for their specific needs.
That clicked. But I was still mulling it over at the time — the phrase hadn’t fully sunk in yet.
It all started to make sense when I reflected on one of my early Vibe Coding builds: a minimalist journaling app.
Not just a blank text field, but a philosophical tool.
Each day, it surfaces a quote from Marcus Aurelius. I write my thoughts, and then it distills them into a reflection grounded in ancient Stoic teachings using AI.
That app was never built for users. It was built for rhythm. For clarity. For me.
And that’s what makes Software for One so powerful.
Why the Old Way of Building Doesn’t Cut It Anymore
For years, building software followed a fixed path: Wireframes → templates → dev sprints → launch (maybe).
Even no-code tools mostly replicated this — drag, drop, tweak, publish.
But whether you were using a design system or a marketplace template, you were still fitting your ideas into someone else’s frame.
That’s the difference with AI-assisted building. You're not selecting from pre-built layouts.
You're describing what you need — and letting AI generate it, on demand.
With Vibe Coding, you don’t start by choosing what exists. You start by explaining what doesn't yet, but should.
Because some tools aren’t products. They’re systems for living better — or at least, they should be. Don’t you think?
What if you want:
A logbook for your emotions over the week
A tracker that celebrates small commitments
A tool that stores quotes that shift your thinking
These aren’t startup ideas. They’re yours. Personal tools, scaffolded in your own language.
And for the first time, you can build them without code, cofounders, or months of validation.
You require a direct method to engage with AI — and that’s what Vibe Coding unlocks.
What is Vibe Coding?
Vibe Coding is a new way to build software using structured natural language instead of traditional programming.
You don’t write code. You describe what you want in plain words.
Then, the AI scaffolds its layout, UI, logic, and even storage using modular, editable building blocks.
For example, you might say:
“Build a minimalist journaling app with a mood selector, a daily Stoic quote based on the selected mood (from a collection of ancient Stoic literatures I will have stored on the server), and AI-generated reflections that respond to my writing from Stoic perspectives.”
And within minutes, you have working software.
This is not no-code.
It’s something beyond code — where your thoughts become scaffolds, and your voice becomes the interface.
What Counts as Software for One?
It’s broader than journaling. It’s deeper than dashboards.
Here are a few patterns I’ve seen emerge from real builds — including my own:
What unites them?
They don’t require an audience
They don’t need to scale
They serve a personal need, not a market niche
They're not just software. They're tools for awareness, clarity, and consistency.
Vibe Coding Makes It Buildable
You don’t need to go from a blank screen to a full-stack app. You don’t need to hire a developer or learn a JavaScript framework.
What you do need is a way to describe your idea clearly and a system to turn it into working software.
That’s where prompt-based building comes in. Instead of writing code, you write out what you want.
Then you use AI-powered platforms like Bolt, Cursor, Lovable, Chef, or Firebase Studio to scaffold the actual app for you.
To make that process smoother, I created two Kits based on my own experience Vibe Coding for the past two months:
The Vibe Coding Starter Kit — to help you learn the vocabulary of app building
The Vibe Coding Prompt Kit — to help you structure your inputs using what I call the One Prompt to Build Them All.
With this prompt format, you describe:
The layout (top, middle, bottom)
The Vibe Units (building blocks)
The Flows (user actions and logic)
Any data, services, or optional AI helpers you want included
Then you run it. And you get back an actual working scaffold — from plain language to production-ready code, in a single step.
Why This Changes the Game
Most people believe you need a dev team to build. But maybe what you really need… is just a prompt.
Most people think apps are for customers. But some of the most valuable tools you’ll ever use might be the ones you build for yourself.
Software for One isn’t about isolation. It’s about intention.
You’re not trying to reach everyone — you’re trying to support how you think, work, or live.
With Vibe Coding, you can build tools that do exactly that — and share them if you choose.
That’s a shift worth paying attention to.
And it’s already happening.
Even Industry Veterans Are Doing It
This isn’t just a creator trend. Some of the most respected minds in tech are already building Software for One.
At OpenAI, CPO Kevin Weil shared a story about their Chief People Officer, Julia, who wanted an internal tool she’d used at a previous company. Instead of waiting for an engineer, she just built it herself — likely using an AI-assisted platform like WindSurf. As Weil put it:
“What excuse do the rest of us have not to be Vibe Coding?”
At Google, Chief Scientist Jeff Dean described how his team shares rapid-fire app experiments in a casual internal chatroom, sometimes building functional tools from a single prompt like the following:
“Make me an interactive game to teach the concepts in this video.”
It didn’t always work, but when it did, it produced working simulations for math, biology, and even Mars exploration.
Dean called it “an incredible sign for education” — and for what’s possible when software becomes lightweight, expressive, and personal.
These stories show what Software for One makes possible: not just faster shipping, but software shaped by curiosity, context, and care.
👉 Ready to Try?
The Vibe Coding Starter Kit gives you the vocabulary to describe what you want.
The Prompt Kit shows you how to scaffold full apps using AI — no code, just clarity.
Together, they unlock the most overlooked use case in tech:
Building software that’s not for everyone — just for you. Or maybe for the few people who matter most.