Featured in The Independent: The Hoxton Mix View on Vibe Coding

Our co-founder Chris Sees was featured in The Independent this week, weighing in on one of the most talked-about shifts in software right now: "vibe coding." It's worth a read if you're a small business owner wondering whether AI can help you build faster... and where the catch is.

You can read the full piece here: How vibe coding can help boost your business — The Independent

So what is vibe coding?

In short, it's using AI to generate working code from plain-English prompts — describe what you want, and the AI builds it. For a small team, the appeal is obvious. You can spin up a website, prototype an idea, or test a feature in hours rather than weeks, often without hiring a developer. The barrier to entry drops dramatically.

That's genuinely exciting, and it's exactly the kind of leverage that lets a small company punch well above its weight — something we know a thing or two about here at the Mix.

Where Chris sounds the note of caution

The catch, as Chris told The Independent, is that speed can be deceptive. AI-generated code can look polished long before it's actually ready for the real world — quietly skipping over the unglamorous-but-critical parts like error handling, security, and the edge cases that only show up once real customers start using it.

The danger isn't the AI itself. It's shipping things you don't fully understand, then discovering the technical and security debt months later when it's far harder to unpick.

His view on where this leaves developers? Not redundant — more valuable. The best engineers will treat AI like a highly capable junior: brilliant at the repetitive heavy lifting, but still needing senior oversight on architecture, judgement, and anything heading near production.

Why this matters to you

If you're running a lean business, the lesson is encouraging rather than discouraging. AI tools genuinely can help you move faster and do more with less. The trick is knowing what to delegate to the machine and what still needs a human eye — especially anything touching customer data, payments, or your reputation.

That mindset — use the best tools, but keep your hand on the wheel — is how we've built the Hoxton Mix platform serving over 60,000 businesses. It's also why we think small businesses are perfectly placed to benefit from this moment, as long as they go in with eyes open.

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