This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Vitalii Dodonov, a 29-year-old founder and CTO based in Toronto. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I studied chemical engineering at the University of Alberta in 2014 after someone recommended it as a solid career path. During college, I worked in a mineral processing lab, where I observed people performing repetitive manual tasks. I thought there had to be a better way, so I began teaching myself to code on the side.
Deloitte came to my campus to recruit. I was hired because I demonstrated hard work through my history of teaching myself to code. They offered me a job at the beginning of my fourth year in 2018 to work as a data scientist. I started working there three months after graduating.
At Deloitte, I realized my passion was really in coding and software, so I kept building side projects on my own. One of them was Vhinny, a platform that aggregated financial information about publicly traded companies.
My experience building Vhinny laid the groundwork for my current company, Stan, which brings in tens of millions in annual revenue. One of Stan’s AI products, Stanley, was vibe-coded in just two weeks.
After almost two years at Deloitte, I began seeking other opportunities
I felt underpaid, and I knew the best market for my skill set was in software engineering, not consulting.
I struggled because I didn’t have formal software engineering credentials, and most Big Tech companies wouldn’t consider me. I became aware of an open software engineering role at eBay, and it was a natural pull toward doing what I was most interested in. I got lucky by using LinkedIn’s easy-apply feature for the eBay role.
I failed the technical interviews with eBay
My strength was discussing Vhinny. I built it over two years, working 5 to 9 a.m. and 5 to 9 p.m., teaching myself engineering. When the hiring manager asked me why I’m good at what I do, I pulled up Vhinny’s architecture and gave a full demo, explaining in detail how it worked.
I used skills generally practiced by senior and staff-level engineers — all self-taught from Google and YouTube, working backward from questions. They hired me as a senior software engineer in May 2020.
During my time at eBay, I met my now cofounder, John, and we decided to build Stan, an all-in-one platform that enables creators to sell digital products through a single link in their bio.
I quit eBay to work for Stan full-time in June 2021
I’m now the CTO. We spent the next several years building out our core creator-commerce platform. As we looked to better serve our customers, our mission became clear: help creators make a living working for themselves. We realized the biggest challenge isn’t selling digital products — it’s building an audience willing to buy them.
We saw an opportunity to help creators build their audiences rather than treat them as a utility-driven monetization product.
My cofounder and I locked in a flat for 14 days to vibe-code a product to do this from scratch
I believe that to be creative, you need to step outside the box — a new environment helps you see things differently. We picked London because neither of us had been there.
We wanted to target creators and entrepreneurs, so we focused on LinkedIn. I didn’t write a single line of code; it was all me and the cursor. We vibe-coded Stanley — our AI “head of content” product — a fully functional tool in 14 days to help creators make high-performing content on LinkedIn.
The platform uses AI to generate posts that sound like the user’s own voice, then tracks which ones perform best by analyzing engagement data. It evolved from a writing assistant into a performance-driven tool that helps creators refine their content and consistently produce viral posts. We documented the entire process on YouTube and launched it to 250 paying customers on the first day.
Stanley was quickly successful
Within six weeks of its launch earlier this year, we hit $50,000 in monthly recurring revenue. Right now, Stanley is tracking for $3 million in annual recurring revenue: $1.5 million from Stanley Instagram, which we launched later, and $1.5 million from Stanley LinkedIn. Stan generates roughly $40 million in annual revenue.
Our vision is to build the world’s AI head of content for everyone. We see so many people doing remarkable work, but with little online presence. Building that presence is a full-time job, and many people don’t have the time or skills to do it well.
We believe that if we can give people a tool that lets them focus on what they do best, while an AI head of content grows their online footprint, it will create more opportunities and make them more successful.
You don’t need prior experience to start vibe coding, but you need a certain mindset
One of the pitfalls of vibe coding is the belief that coding itself is the solution. The correct way to think about it is that it’s just a way to deliver value to customers. Success comes down to understanding the problem you’re solving and solving it for as many people as possible.
Next, define your goal, whether it’s building a $10 million business, quitting your job, or creating financial security for your family. Work backward from that goal and ask, “What do I need to do to get there?” From there, you can achieve anything you want.
We live in a world where AI agents give individuals the firepower of an entire company. Getting there becomes a matter of effort. If you’re willing to work backward and put in the work, almost nothing is out of reach.
My ambition is to build a generational company that the world runs on in 30 to 40 years. I’m working on various aspects that position me to do that. Would I ever go back to corporate? Very unlikely.
I don’t see myself ever working for anyone else.
