Vibe coding opened the door for solo founders to build real web apps with AI—but if you don’t approach it the right way, things get messy fast. In this guide, I break down the vibe coding basics I wish I’d known earlier: how to plan your app so the AI actually understands what you want, how to prompt with structure (not “magic sentences”), and how to avoid that classic result where your app looks like a middle schooler’s first WordPress site. I walk you through my simple PRD (Product Requirements Document) framework so you stop wasting hours on half-finished projects. Your PRD should cover the problem, how people solve it today, who it’s for, your solution, and the minimum version you need to ship. Then I show how I prompt using four elements—persona, task, context, and format—and how a little design direction (layout, hierarchy, clarity) makes AI-generated UIs look like real products. Finally, we get into the unglamorous stuff that makes or breaks launches: debugging without panicking (build one feature at a time, copy the error, ask the tool to fix it) and security basics like privacy policies, secure storage, hashed passwords, and using Stripe for payments. Vibe coding is the execution layer—strategy and customer understanding are still on you—but with the right process, you can move fast without burning days on trial and error.