v0 Tutorial from the CPO: AI Prototype Like a Pro

1. AGAakash Gupta0:00

   Tom Occhino, you are the CPO of Vercel, one of the hottest companies in AI, and the makers of v0, which everybody I know is talking about for AI prototyping. How big is v0? What numbers can you share with us?

2. TOTom Occhino0:14

   Yeah. v0 has been used by about two million people since last year, and we're growing really, really fast. Even if you're not an engineer, even if you're non-technical, the era of personal software is absolutely upon us, and this has been the most exciting thing for me. I really don't think about the competition. I think about our customers and delivering as much value as I can, and I also think about my own use case.

3. AGAakash Gupta0:37

   What are the other AI things you're using as a CPO in your day-to-day that help you? Why should I watch this episode?

4. TOTom Occhino0:45

   In this episode, we're gonna talk about v0 as a tool, how to use it to transform not just the way you do your job. And then we'll talk about how the team that builds v0 built it, how they use it themselves, as well as more generally, um, Vercel's strategy for and approach to product development.

5. AGAakash Gupta1:03

   An AI startup valued at $3.25 billion. In today's episode, we're gonna walk through a live demo of their hit product, v0, which is one of the leading AI prototyping tools on the market. We're gonna talk about how Vercel builds product, how v0 uses v0, and the future of product management in the era of AI prototyping. So if you're a product manager, designer or engineer, or even just someone founder using AI prototyping tools, there's a lot to learn. So let's get started. Really quickly, I think a crazy stat is that more than 50% of you listening are not subscribed. If you can subscribe on YouTube, follow on Apple or Spotify podcasts, my commitment to you is that we'll continue to make this content better and better. And now on to today's episode. Tom Occhino, you are the Chief Product Officer at Vercel, one of the hottest companies in AI and the makers of v0. And what I wanted to know is how big is v0 now? Can you share, in terms of users or revenue, how much you've grown?

6. TOTom Occhino2:12

   Yeah. Nearly two million people have used v0 since we launched last year. Uh, we're growing fast. It's, it's sort of exponential here, and the uptake has been really, really exciting to watch. Uh, of those people that have used v0, many of them are deploying what they've built. Uh, we've had over two and a half million deployments to Vercel from v0, so building things that are out there and in use.

7. AGAakash Gupta2:36

   Not just prototypes, which is, I think, the most common use case-

8. TOTom Occhino2:40

   Okay

9. AGAakash Gupta2:40

   ... I've been talking a lot about, but actual apps. It's pretty amazing. So can we show people how v0 works and how you can build apps?

10. TOTom Occhino2:48

    Yeah, absolutely. And I'd love to show some of the stuff that I've built for myself that I use on a daily or weekly basis. Uh, let me share a screen here. So, uh, where do you wanna start?

11. AGAakash Gupta2:59

    So I love LinkedIn, of course. It's how I built basically this solopreneur business. But what if I wanted a better version of LinkedIn's newsfeed?

12. TOTom Occhino3:11

    I see. A better...

13. AGAakash Gupta3:16

    I'm curious-

14. TOTom Occhino3:16

    Let's, uh, l-let's actually enhance the prompt here and see if we can create [chuckles] something that, uh, you know, is a lot better. So the first thing I did is I just said, "Look, my prompt was silly, but maybe you can embellish it a little bit."

15. AGAakash Gupta3:28

    Okay.

16. TOTom Occhino3:28

    Uh, and now we're gonna let v0 cook. Uh, let's see. It's coming up with a plan. Uh, it's got a project structure. I actually love looking at the thinking. So while it's actually, like, authoring all of the code, I'm, like, reading in, "Let me see the plan." Uh, we need some layout, navigation, a feed with different post types. Okay, we're gonna have post interaction components, user profile card and detail view. So the whole plan here, great. I didn't have to put any of the plan together.

17. AGAakash Gupta3:56

    Yeah.

18. TOTom Occhino3:56

    And now it's cooking over here on the side, so we'll watch it write some code.

19. AGAakash Gupta3:59

    It's basically written-

20. TOTom Occhino3:59

    It's actually created a whole app with multiple files

21. AGAakash Gupta4:02

    ... a product requirements document for us.

22. TOTom Occhino4:04

    Yeah, basically put together a very lightweight PRD.

23. AGAakash Gupta4:07

    Yeah.

24. TOTom Occhino4:08

    Uh, and yeah. Now we're, we're authoring some code over here. It looks like we're building a nav bar. We've got our layout, our page. There's gonna be a profile component. I'm excited to see what it looks like.

25. AGAakash Gupta4:18

    And we just let it go without a screenshot. Is that how you often prompt?

26. TOTom Occhino4:23

    Yeah, I think, um, I do a, a mixture. If there's something that I'm inspired by that I, I want it to be, you know, something that looks like this but with that change or with this tweak, I'll start with a screenshot, and I think we should look at an example of that. Actually, maybe we can, uh... Let's do that in parallel here. While we're cooking on our LinkedIn, uh-

27. AGAakash Gupta4:41

    [chuckles]

28. TOTom Occhino4:41

    ... in the first, the first one, let's actually use a screenshot. So you had sent me, uh, a version of your logged in homepage.

29. AGAakash Gupta4:50

    Yes.

30. TOTom Occhino4:50

    Uh-

Episode duration: 1:15:15