Scene: Monday morning. A parent tries to book their child into “Math Excellence Tuition Centre.” The new website was built and shipped last week—Lovable AI, of course.
Parent: “Hi, I tried booking my son for Friday’s class, but the website says he’s already attended… next month?”
Center Admin (scrolling dashboard): “Oh, uh, sometimes it does that. The AI is ‘future-predictive’. Try refreshing the page?”
Parent: “Now it says there are 3 seats left, then 15, then negative 2. Also, my payment just went through twice.”
Center Admin: “Great! That means the payment API integration is working—twice as fast as before.”
Parent: “There’s no confirmation email, and I can’t find the ‘undo’ button. Also, the app logged me out, but the booking still shows as ‘pending’. Should I try again?”
Center Admin (smiling nervously): “Uh… Let me ask our product manager.”
Product Manager (appears, carrying laptop and coffee): “That’s just the AI learning. Our team shipped this in 2 days! Lovable even said it was production-ready. Ignore the warnings—most users don’t see those anyway. And if it really breaks, just email us. We’re fastest to $100M, you know.”
All Aboard the Hyper-Train: The Lovable Illusion
Speed sells. That’s why every other LinkedIn post is flexing on “shipping in a weekend,” “10x productivity,” or being “the fastest to $100M.”
Lovable and similar tools want you to believe that the only thing between you and success is how quickly you can ship.
But let’s be honest: Speed without substance is just a train to nowhere.
Recently, I saw someone compare “vibe coding” to gambling—and it’s not far off. You throw some AI code at a wall, spin the roulette wheel, and hope you land on “production-ready.” Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But is that how you want to run your business? In the real world, that’s like playing Russian roulette—with a loaded revolver pointed at the temple of your business. Are you really ready to spin and pull that trigger?
Tools like Lovable can absolutely help you ship something faster than ever before. Heck, even I was impressed when I first tried using it to experiment with some ideas 💡 that I had.
But what they can’t do—and what most users never stop to ask—is the most important question of all:
“Why are we building this?”
No AI tool can answer that for you. And when you’re riding the hyper-train, it’s dangerously easy to forget.
What “Production-Ready” Actually Means (Hint: It’s Not Just a Demo or a Working Prototype either)
When I first played with Lovable, I was blown away. I pitched it a Pomodoro-inspired app idea, and—like magic—there it was: a working app, spun up in an afternoon.
A few tweaks, some feedback loops, and it did exactly what it said on the tin: it shipped something fast.
But then the illusion cracked.
What I had wasn’t “production-ready”. Heck, it wasn’t even something I’d trust myself (or anyone else) to use past that initial wow moment.
The MVP worked, sure. But MVP isn’t even a full prototype, let alone an app I’d stake my reputation on.
Second attempt: same story. I tried to build something closer to my real ambitions. Lovable got me an MVP…and then it stopped.
No auth, no proper error handling, no battle-tested backend.
It’s a cool trick for demos, but “production-ready”? Not by a long shot.
AI Tools: Where They Shine, Where They Absolutely Don’t
Here’s the truth: if it weren’t for AI, I wouldn’t have shipped my last project in five weeks. It would’ve taken me three months, maybe more.
Tools like GPT-4.1 (and yes, even Lovable and its cousins) are incredible for turning ideas into something tangible.
They’re the perfect platforms for rapid prototyping, ideation, and that first dopamine hit of seeing your vision take shape.
Honestly? You don’t need a CS degree, or even much coding knowledge, to get a “working” demo out the door now.
Things I spent 15–20 years learning, these tools can now do it in seconds. That’s powerful. That’s democratizing. I salute that.
But let’s not kid ourselves: what’s impressive for a hackathon or side project is not what you want holding up your actual business when real users (and real money/investments) are on the line.
A Day in the Life: When the Glue Starts to Melt
Take my own PageBuilder project.
Week one, with GPT-4.1 as my co-pilot, I whipped up a demo so fast 💨 it felt like cheating. Drag-and-drop worked. Editing flowed. UI looked shiny.
I was riding the hyper-train, smiling all the way.
Then I started testing.
Suddenly, the wheels came off.
Weird bugs, edge cases, subtle UI breakage, data vanishing when you least expect it.
The demo that looked “production-ready” for next Monday? By Saturday, it was a haunted house of quirks. In fact, my client and I had to agree that the project needed more time to be built properly [better].
This is the trap: trusting the illusion that the tool can do it all for you.
It’s like building your dream house on clay. Sure, it looks fine until the first big storm.
And there will be storms 🌪️ 🌀 🌊.
No matter how good the AI, the human factor still matters.
You need to know when to question, when to stress-test, and when to say, “This isn’t ready—yet.”
The “Production-Ready” Checklist (for Real Businesses, Not Just Investors)
Speaking as a seasoned UX engineer and front-end developer for over 20 years, I can tell you: there’s so much more to building a production-level app or website than just patching together code with glue and scissors ✂️. Even if you slap on a mountain of duct tape, you’re still left with something fragile—something that’s bound to fall apart when the first real storm hits.
We all saw this during the pandemic. Businesses everywhere scrambled to go online overnight. The result? Too many platforms and tools rushed to market, not properly tested or built, and it led to a tidal wave of bad customer experiences, and, in many cases, real business pain.
So before you trust your business (or reputation) to the next “production-ready” app, here’s a simple checklist to measure if it’s truly up to the task:
| Category | What It Really Means | Does Your App Pass? |
|---|---|---|
| Auth/Security | Secure logins, no obvious XSS/injection holes, permissions handled cleanly | ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ “Soon…” |
| Error Handling | App doesn’t crash, users get clear error messages and can recover | ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ “Kinda…” |
| Data Integrity | No lost data, no “ghost” entries, proper validation on inputs | ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ “Mostly?” |
| API Integration | Real APIs, not just dummy or static data; robust fallback on failure | ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ “Well…” |
| Responsive UI | Works across devices, not just desktop Chrome | ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ “Maybe?” |
| Accessibility | Navigable with keyboard, readable by screenreader, color contrast is legit | ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ “Oops…” |
| Undo/Redo/History | Users can undo mistakes or roll back changes | ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ “Coming soon” |
| State Management | App recovers gracefully from refreshes, accidental closes, or back/forward | ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ “???” |
| Export/Import | Users can export/import data in standard formats (CSV, JSON, etc.) | ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ “Next sprint” |
| Performance | Loads quickly, no timeouts or infinite spinners as usage grows | ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ “It’s… fine?” |
| Docs/Onboarding | A new dev (or even you) can understand/extend the codebase in a week | ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ “Just ChatGPT it” |
| Hosting/DevOps | Versioned deploys, reliable uptime, easy rollback if shit hits the fan | ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ “Pray” |
Issuing the Challenge: “Lovable Production Challenge”
So here’s my offer, and my challenge, to the Lovable community.
Starting today, I’m launching a new article series: Lovable Production Challenge.
In each article, I’ll review selected apps submitted by community members, built using Lovable, shipped and live in the wild. You’ll get a public, honest, and (most importantly) fair critique. I won’t sugarcoat my professional opinions, but I will provide constructive feedback and suggestions for improvement.
My goal isn’t to shame. Instead, it’s to help you get your ideas and visions closer to the real results you want. If your app passes the production-ready checklist, I’ll give you a shoutout 📣 here. If not? At least you’ll walk away with clear, actionable steps to raise your game.
But here’s the real challenge. And this one’s for Lovable as a company:
Are you ready to put your platform to the test?
If you’re not, then please, stop using words like “shipping” and “production-ready” in your advertising and marketing. Because once users break through the illusion, it’s only a matter of time before that loaded revolver comes full circle, and you discover there’s a real cost to overhyping what you can’t deliver.
Reputation is everything in tech. Once lost, it’s almost impossible to get back.
🎤 (mic drop)