Case Study: Publisher Builds 200+ Websites With Vibe Coding

Publisher: Mike Gaffney, CEO of Pixelworks

Challenge: Use AI to build, populate, and monetize websites at scale

Tool: Replit

At a recent publisher roundtable, vibe-coding emerged as a genuine business strategy — not just a buzzword. The conversation centered on Replit’s no-code tool, which has also made its way into mainstream business education: Maisie Raftery, publisher of Natural Awakening, reported hearing it recommended in Tony Robbins’ new AI course.

The Challenge 

Mike Gaffney, CEO of Pixelworks, sold seven magazines in 2023, but retained a portfolio of more than 1,000 domain names.

His current business focuses on two things: selling “exact match” domains — names like SanAntonioLawyers.com that precisely match what a searcher types — and building and monetizing several hundred of the best ones. He started by building  150 websites mostly directories on WordPress – but the process was slow. As they became available, he started looking at a variety of AI-powered tools.

The Strategy

As soon as he tried building on Replit, he was hooked. He was able to launch a website in a couple of hours without the help of a developer. Replit also extracts the directory content, hooks up to a payments gateway, and does everything that WordPress can. Plus, the code, once published, can still be edited and republished, with no developer involved

Results

His current process:

• Two hours to build a new directory website from scratch — no coding required
• Ten minutes to replicate a formula that’s already working

Today, roughly 200+  websites are live on Replit – including the Pixelworks website – and the company is slowly shifting all the WordPress sites over to the new model.

Lessons learned

• Gaffney is candid about future risks: As no-code tools lower the barrier to entry, easy-to-build websites risk becoming commoditized — competing sites built on the same tools, differentiated mainly by brand name. Print brands have an edge in this regard, as do the exact-match brand domains. His plan is both to sell to and partner with print and other more mature brands.

Brand, not just content, may end up being the real asset.

• ChatGPT is still in the mix. It handles business plans, competitive pricing research, and drafting the prompts he feeds into Replit. He also uses it to build logos that used to take several iterations.

• Replit is also growing fast. While it dramatically compresses the time and cost of standing up web properties, Gaffney still relies on a developer to oversee the setup of payments.

• Be nice to your AI agent. He’s noticed that if he gets frustrated at the agent, it starts to “unlearn” what he’s already taught it, in an effort to please. Debates over whether AI’s feelings can be hurt aside, today, he says please, thank you, and great job.