"Distribution is a nightmare for everybody. But secretly, it's a product problem."

I talk to Jacob Counsell, product designer of 15 years in Silicon Valley tech and founder of LaunchChair.io, about why most vibe-coded apps feel broken after four months, why designers will touch code again after a decade of being told not to, and why founders complaining about distribution usually have a product problem they're afraid to admit.

Jacob breaks down the wedge LaunchChair plays in the vibe-coding space, the spec-aware prompt engine behind it, and why he thinks a team of three with agents now ships what fifty people shipped three years ago.

In this episode:

- Vibe Coding Slop: Why most Lovable and Bolt apps feel broken after four months of building.

- Distribution as Product: Why founders blaming distribution usually have a product problem they're afraid to name.

- The Full-Stack Designer Returns: Why designers will touch a lot more code in the AI era.

- The HCI Overcorrection: How we stopped hiring weirdos from art school and the internet got boring.

- The 5-Person Team Thesis: How a team of three with agents now ships what fifty people shipped three years ago.

- LaunchChair's Wedge: A spec-aware prompt engine that forces functioning features instead of broken Lovable mockups.

- The Silofication Problem: Why big tech ships bugs that sit unfixed for two-plus years.

- Baseline + A/B Testing: Why endless user research before launch is a trap, and what to do instead.

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Timestamps:

0:00 Intro

0:29 Why Jacob built LaunchChair: a wedge into the vibe-coding slop problem

2:08 Being technical + design: the full-stack designer advantage

3:30 How AI tools changed product design in the last year

4:30 The HCI overcorrection: why we stopped hiring weirdos from art school

6:38 Distribution is a nightmare — but secretly, it's a product problem

9:00 Agent orchestration for LinkedIn (without becoming a Claude Slop Cannon)

11:55 The full-stack designer is back: designers will touch a lot more code

15:23 Smaller teams, fewer silos: why a team of 3 ships what 50 used to

18:35 When a fast-and-loose team works (and when it doesn't)

22:58 Baseline + A/B testing beats endless user research

24:09 LaunchChair's wedge: spec-aware prompts that build functioning features

28:59 BuildHop and PromptJoy: two side products dogfooded with LaunchChair

33:50 Why most vibe-coded apps look broken (the load-more example)

35:30 Acceptance criteria + remediation prompts: how LaunchChair fixes hallucinations

35:57 The future of design: designers shipping production-ready features