Say Hello to Vibecoding: Lovable's Agentic Onboarding Teardown

How Loveable’s Onboarding Unleashed Vibecoding on our World

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Lovable didn’t just bolt ChatGPT onto an old workflow—they let an autonomous agent shoulder the heavy lifting, then layered irresistible UX and growth hooks on top. Steal these patterns now, before your onboarding looks like dial-up.

1. The 30-second Airbnb clone

Prompt to clone. Welcome to vibecoding:

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Maker Rez Karim’s tweet shows the moment on X: “I asked Lovable to build me an Airbnb clone. First screens in 2 min, working prototype in 15.” Instant proof that large-language models (LLMs) can be builders, not just helpers.

2. Why we love Lovable

Rocket-ship metrics. Stockholm-based Lovable raised a $200 M Series A at a $1.8 B valuation only eight months after launch.
ARR milestones. Reports peg revenue at $75M–$80M ARR in month 7.
Growth leadership. Elena Verna (SurveyMonkey, Amplitude, Miro) joined to run growth and sharing her experience.

Takeaway: Europe’s first LLM-native unicorn creates a new category: Vibecoding

3. Agentic onboarding, step-by-step

3.1 An onboarding classic: Sign-up & survey

Five-second sign-up—email only, but Lovable still has a signup survey: Just enough data to personalize templates, then straight to value.

3.2 Public by default

Visibility dropdown defaulted to Public.

Anything you build is share-ready unless you opt out—automatic social proof.

3.3 Build cards & live narration

Loveable's loading screen when it starts a new project from a prompt. — Real-time progress beats spinners.

Every subtask—Create schema → Compose UI → Spin preview—is narrated, so users feel the momentum, not mystery.

Call-out: All tasks are collapsed into one feed—the agent’s log shows it's working (even if it takes nearly a full minute!).

4. Wizard vs. vibe coding

Our teardown of Airtable’s agentic onboarding “vibecoding” shows the jump from the previous onboarding wizards.

5. Editor moments you can steal today

5.1 Select-&-Edit loop

Updating the artifact keep us novices in the editor flow—no disconnect between the chat and what you're building.

Select & Edit loop: copy tweak updates instantly. — Choose where and what to edit and Lovable does it for you.

5.2 Code Credibility

When the agent edits code, it cites the exact file and line—turning AI magic into something developers can trust.

The code export button on each action. — See how each action updates the underlying code.

5.3 Show me more actions

Show all to see a timeline view of what the LLM is doing behind the scenes.

5.4 Undo / Restore safety net

Every agent edit is versioned. One-click restore removes fear from experimentation.

5.5 Next-action chips

Context-aware CTAs keep momentum high and decision fatigue low.

Annotated screenshot of Loveable’s chat response showing ‘Connect Supabase,’ ‘Visit docs,’ and ‘Manage knowledge’ next-action chips; thumbs-up/thumbs-down icons on the right invite quick feedback. — Next-action chips pull users deeper while instant thumbs feedback closes the learning loop.

6. The growth flywheel

The Lovable Flywheel: clones → content → community

Flywheel Spoke	What Happens	Evidence
Viral clone threads	Makers tweet GIFs of clones built in minutes, sparking curiosity and FOMO.	Rez Karim’s Airbnb tweet
Product Hunt relaunches	Quarterly launches resurface new features and drive fresh traffic spikes.	Loveable on Product Hunt
Discord show-and-tell	Users post builds, others remix, and public support doubles as marketing.
Public-by-default projects	Every build ships with a share link that back-links to Loveable, compounding SEO.

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Annotated screenshot of Loveable’s pricing tiers: Pro at $25 per month with 100 monthly credits, Business at $50 per month, and Enterprise custom plans—call-out box reads ‘Low entry prices for teams cast a wide funnel. — Low entry prices cast a wide funnel—usage-based credits handle the scaling.

Result: 85% day-30 retention (per Elena Verna on High Flyers)—and a user-generated content engine that compounds with zero ad spend.

7. Pricing psychology

Lovable project menu showing a credits progress bar with 2.4 daily credits left and a note that daily credits are used first. — Daily free-credit countdown creates gentle urgency without surprise bills.

Free tier: 5 daily credits—enough to taste the magic.

Inline “credits used” lets users value each action without bill shock.

Upgrade banners frame free to paid upgrades as continuation, not a paywall.

Steal-it tip: surface LLM cost in-app. Transparency builds trust and smooths the jump to paid tiers.

8. From code to vibecode

A year ago scaffolding an Airbnb clone meant weeks of dev time. Now it’s $0.60 of GPT-4o tokens. Code is cheap; differentiation moves to experience design:

Narrative UI (agent logs, persona survey) makes reasoning feel tangible.‍
Micro-interactions (undo, next-action chips) build confidence— and retention.‍‍
Public defaults turn every user into a marketer.

Loveable's discord community page. — Have a question? The community is hosted on Discord.

9. Lovable patterns you can ship

Pattern	Why It Works	How to Copy Tomorrow
Agentic onboarding	Converts by doing the work on the first prompt, not asking users to fill forms.	Kick off a back-end job on first input; surface live logs so users see progress.
Public-by-default	Generates instant social proof and shareable artefacts that market the product for free.	Default new projects to “Public”; add a privacy toggle for edge cases.
Usage-based credits	Transparent micro-pricing builds trust and scales revenue with actual compute costs.	Expose cost per AI call inline; display remaining balance where users are working.
Next-action chips	Maintains momentum by suggesting the most likely next step, reducing decision fatigue.	After each assistant action, render two context-aware CTAs (e.g., “Preview”, “Publish”).
Full-stack integrations	Expands perceived product ceiling from “site builder” to “app platform.”	Offer one-click hooks into a backend (Supabase, Firebase) or auth provider (Auth0).