From Google to Vibe Coding: Sherry Jiang’s Blueprint for Startups

Remote masterpieces built at velocity — that’s the quiet revolution electrifying the startup world today. And if there’s one story that captures it in full color, it’s Sherry Jiang’s. On The Runway Ventures podcast, she laid out how she built Peek, a personal finance app that’s already touched thousands of users, and did it without torching millions on paid ads.

What makes Sherry’s journey so compelling isn’t just the grit, the hustle, or the product itself. It’s how she married deep user empathy with cutting-edge AI — harnessing “vibe coding” to innovate faster, cheaper, and smarter than anyone expected. In her story, I see a roadmap for founders in 2025: a world where marketing budgets are tight, attention spans evaporate by the minute, and AI isn’t just a tool but a partner in creation.

From Google to Founding: The Leap Fueled by Empathy and AI

Sherry’s trajectory blends pedigree with raw risk. At Google, she worked on scaling Google Pay to millions of users in India — a crash course in financial ecosystems at scale. But the higher she climbed, the more boxed in she felt. The thrill of scrappy problem-solving gave way to routine, the classic corporate plateau.

So she did what few dare: she jumped. She left the cushioned corporate world for the entrepreneurial abyss. But she didn’t leap empty-handed. She carried with her a wealth of lessons: not just how products scale, but how users actually think, feel, and decide.

That empathy formed the kernel of Peek — a personal finance coach designed not to intimidate but to guide, making money management clearer, calmer, and friendlier.

The Philosophy Behind Peek: Behavioral Science Meets AI with Empathy

Most personal finance apps fail in the same way: they drown users in graphs, jargon, and a kind of cold math that spikes cortisol more than it helps. Sherry’s Peek is a rebellion against that. The design choices — pastel colors, simple flows, language that speaks like a friend — are deliberate. The goal is to ease anxiety, not amplify it.

The insight is simple but profound: people don’t fail at finance because they can’t add. They fail because of procrastination, avoidance, fear. Peek doesn’t just calculate — it nudges, reassures, and creates small wins that shift habits over time.

Sherry’s ethos is clear: money apps should feel like an ally, not a scolding advisor perched on your shoulder.

Vibe Coding: The Three-Hour Sprint That Changed Everything

Ask Sherry how long it took her to build Peek’s first prototype. The answer: three hours.

Three hours of “vibe coding.”

This isn’t the stereotype — eyes closed, blindly trusting AI. Sherry’s version is deliberate. Using tools like Vercel’s V0 and Cursor, she built a working prototype in a sprint designed to test hypotheses, not polish features. It’s AI not as magic, but as amplifier.

Her secret framework? What she calls the “rule of six.” Six in-depth user interviews, repeated consistently, surface the key emotional signals that drive product direction. No endless data drowning, no drawn-out betas — just lean, sharp, scientific minimalism. Build, test, learn, iterate.

Building With the User in Mind: The Interview Edge

The way Sherry runs user interviews is deceptively simple but devastatingly effective.

Her first question: “What’s your finance workflow today?” She’s not just asking about tools. She’s probing the when, the why, the emotions that orbit money management.

Then comes the filter: where is the pain so acute that people can’t ignore it anymore? That’s the entry point. Products that live at the intersection of pain and urgency become indispensable, not optional. Peek’s UX orbits that principle — aiming to feel frictionless, almost addictive, not because of gamification but because it lifts real weight off users’ shoulders.

Pragmatic Realities: APIs, Markets, and Focus

For all its AI-driven elegance, Peek still collides with the brutal realities of fintech.

Banking APIs in Asia are a mess. Integration is fragmented, inconsistent, and costly. While Plaid and others streamline this in the US, Southeast Asia’s patchwork infrastructure is a gauntlet.

So Sherry made the pragmatic call: focus on the US first. Build where integrations are smoother, double down on AI-driven UX, and avoid drowning in tech debt before the product even has legs.

Going Viral Without Burning Cash: A Playbook for Growth in 2025

Sherry’s growth strategy is the antithesis of big-budget marketing. It’s sharp, authentic, and ruthlessly efficient:

• Founder-led branding. She turned LinkedIn and Twitter into windows into her grind — posting raw updates, wins, stumbles. Transparency seeded trust, and trust seeded organic growth.

• Micro-influencers. Sherry tapped TikTok’s creator economy, targeting niche finance influencers whose audiences already felt the pain Peek addresses.

• The sweet spot. She focused on creators with 10k–100k followers. Big enough to matter, small enough to stay authentic and affordable — keeping CAC under $1.

• Persistence. Hundreds of emails. Cold outreach. Trial and error. The grind of curation. The payoff? Viral loops, organic referrals, and awareness without the ad spend.

Monetization: Patience Over Premature Optimization

Unlike most B2C founders, Sherry isn’t in a rush to monetize. Her view: Peek first needs mindshare. It needs to be the app people think of first when they think AI finance.

So for now, it’s free. Build loyalty, deepen trust, scale usage. Subscription models will come later, once the product has established itself as indispensable. Premature monetization risks killing momentum. Sherry is unwilling to make that mistake.

Building in Public: Vulnerability as Strategy

Sherry’s choice to build in public isn’t naive optimism. It’s calculated authenticity.

She shares the good and the bad: buggy launches, harsh reviews, raw doubts. That openness creates a conversation with her users. It turns Peek into a co-creation rather than a polished, distant product.

For Sherry, vulnerability is a growth lever. Fail in public, learn in public, and let users see the scars. It builds loyalty deeper than polished PR ever could.

The Emotional Core: Fear, Fatigue, and Grit

Behind the polished narratives of podcasts and posts, Sherry is candid about the shadows:

• The runway is short. Less than a year of cash.

• Mistakes sting. Nine months on the wrong product before pivoting.

• Fundraising is brutal in the post-2023 climate.

• The emotional load is heavy — the pressure of building, sharing, hustling, and balancing life simultaneously.

But Sherry reframes fear. To her, fear is a problem, not a stop sign. You solve it. You learn through risk, not by avoiding it.

Vibe Coding and the Gatekeeper Debate

In a world where hardened engineers dismiss AI coding as sloppy or dangerous, Sherry takes a different stance.

Her line is sharp: “Vibe coding isn’t set it and forget it. It’s accelerant and tutor.”

For non-engineers, it opens doors. For developers, it’s a co-pilot that accelerates and teaches. With tools like V0 and Cursor, she proves that AI-assisted coding doesn’t degrade craft; it expands the circle of builders.

Gatekeeping misses the point. The future rewards those who harness AI, not those who cling to purity.

The Founder as Multihyphenate

What makes Sherry fascinating isn’t just what she builds, but how she balances.

• She DJs part-time, feeding her creativity.

• She plays poker, sharpening strategy.

• She runs fitness routines, grounding her focus.

• She mentors peers through Code with AI workshops, turning lessons outward.

Her formula isn’t grind until burnout. It’s selective engagement in activities that recharge and sharpen her, not just add to the to-do list.

Lessons for Founders in the Post-AI World

Sherry’s blueprint is simple, but not easy:

• Don’t quit without a runway — maximize optionality.

• Prototype fast, test lean — avoid drowning in research paralysis.

• Use AI as a collaborator, not a crutch.

• Partner with influencers who resonate, not just reach.

• Build in public — not for PR, but for dialogue.

• Kill what doesn’t work, without ego.

• Treat fear as solvable, not terminal.

Closing Thought: A Future Built in Collaboration

Sherry Jiang represents the new founder archetype. Nonlinear. Multihyphenate. Fluent in AI, rooted in empathy, unafraid to stumble in public. Her story isn’t one of AI replacing humans. It’s one of AI with humans — building faster, smarter, and more creatively than ever.

The lesson? The future belongs to founders who harness velocity without losing soul. Those who code with AI, but also listen, empathize, and design for human emotion. Those who ship vibe-coded prototypes that evolve into indispensable tools.

That’s Sherry’s revolution. And it’s one worth racing toward.