Former Amazon exec builds custom CRM in one day, sparking debate over AI coding tools

'Wildly productive weekend': Former Amazon exec's vibe coding post sparks debate over viral AI tools

Dave Clark didn't just get some chores done this weekend. He built an entire end-to-end customer prototype, reworked a deck, and created a custom CRM. "Wildly productive weekend ... Three things that used to take months happened in 72 hours," Clark, the former Amazon Worldwide Consumer CEO and Flexport CEO, wrote on LinkedIn. He added: "Crazy what new tools can do to expand your surface area and personal productivity." Clark, the CEO of Seattle-area logistics startup Auger, said that configuring a traditional CRM proved more painful than starting from scratch. He described how his team abandoned off-the-shelf software in favor of building exactly what was needed. His post comes amid ongoing hype and attention on so-called "vibe coding" tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot that enable the rapid building and iteration of software. Responding to a comment on his post, Clark explained that he wasn't incentivized by cost-savings with his weekend projects. "I did it because I couldn't see the data I wanted, the communication pipeline wasn't manageable at the level of detail I expected and it was going to hurt our ability to scale to meet customer needs if it wasn't fixed," he said. "So I fixed it. I also got to go deeper on using the tools that will define the future. They were hours well spent." Clark's post drew some skepticism from commenters online. Longtime entrepreneur Steven Cohn, who has sold four startups, asked Clark "why you vibe coded and didn't just use any of the open source products that are out there and fully developed and completely customizable." Clark responded: "Of course I've used tons of open sourced. In this case for an internal use app I liked the custom build as the right tool for the job. Others might choose differently. I was struck by how fast and easy it was." The post made its way to X, where some wondered about how the weekend project would scale or what resources would be needed to fix bugs. As we reported last week, Anthropic's Claude Code in particular has caught fire in recent months, impressing software engineers with its ability to handle longer, more complex workflows. Claude Code is "one of a new generation of AI coding tools that represent a sudden capability leap in AI in the past month or so," wrote Ethan Mollick, a Wharton professor and AI researcher, in a Jan. 7 blog post. Anthropic also just released Claude Cowork, a version of Claude Code that is built for everyday knowledge work instead of just programming. The company said it used Claude Code to build Claude Cowork itself. But whether vibe-coding tools completely change the way businesses build software still remains to be seen. "Vibe coding and AI code generation certainly make it easier to build software, but the technical barriers to coding have not been the drivers of software moats for some time," analysts with William Blair wrote in a report last week. "For the most successful and scaled software companies, determining what to build next and how it should function within a broader system is fundamentally more important and more challenging than the technical act of building and coding it." After a 23-year tenure at Amazon, Clark launched Auger in 2024 with $100 million in Series A funding. The company plans to offer an AI-powered system for supply chain operations that unifies data, targets inefficiencies, provides real-time insights and automation.

Amazon Worldwide Consumer Ex-CEO Builds Own CRM Tool in 1 Day | AIM

The news itself isn't surprising, but it reflects a broader threat to SaaS from AI. Dave Clark, founder and CEO of an enterprise AI startup, shared on LinkedIn how he built a customer relationship management (CRM) tool in just one day using vibe coding tools. Clark stated this was built to accommodate their specific sales needs. "We tried configuring an off-the-shelf tool for our cycle. Too many fields we don't need, missing the ones we do, forces a pipeline flow that doesn't match reality. Spent more time fighting the tool than using it," he said. "So I just built what we needed. Took a night and a morning." Besides the CRM tool, Clark also revealed how he built an end-to-end customer prototype tool and reworked the company's deck into a web view in just a weekend. "Three things that used to take months happened in 72 hours," he said. Clark was also the CEO of Amazon's Worldwide Consumer division, where he spent over 23 years, spanning multiple senior roles. While this isn't a surprising development, as users have long demonstrated the capabilities of vibe coding tools, it reflects the broader trend of enterprise leaders building custom solutions rather than purchasing SaaS products. While not all of them can be verified, reports of such scenarios have been flooding social media for the last few days. Maor Shlomo, founder of Base44, a vibe coding startup that got acquired by Wix.com last year, said on X, "Just heard of a customer that terminated a $350k contract with Salesforce for the custom solution they built on top of Base44." "I've been getting those stories on a ~weekly basis now," he added. SaaS stocks on public markets have seen significant recent declines, with poor performance observed over the past few weeks and the last month. Having said that, many experts also suggest that vibe coding and no-code/low-code tools are valuable for prototyping, experimentation, and internal automation. They're not currently reliable as a long-term foundation for SaaS or CRM products that will have paying users, sensitive data, or complex workflows that must also account for various compliance mechanisms and regulations.