DeepStation's Vibe Coding Cohort Experience

Miami is quietly becoming one of the most exciting cities to be in if you care about building things with AI. And this course reminded me exactly why.

Just this week, I wrapped up DeepStation’s four-week Vibe Code cohort, held at The DOCK inside The LAB Miami in Wynwood. I went in curious and came out genuinely impressed, not just by the tools we used, but by how thoughtfully the whole experience was designed. This is my attempt to give you an honest, first-hand account of what the course was like and why I think it matters, especially if you’ve ever felt like “coding is the one thing standing between me and launching my idea.”

Table of contents

What Is DeepStation?

Before diving into the course itself, a bit of context. DeepStation is an official OpenAI Academy Launch Partner with a presence across Miami, Brazil, and India. They have educated over 4,000 people globally about AI, connect local talent with industry, and actively contribute to economic development through hands-on education. If you’ve been paying attention to Miami’s tech scene at all, you’ve likely crossed paths with their work.

The Vibe Code cohort was designed and led by Grant Kurz, Founder and CEO of DeepStation; Michael Friedberg, Senior Software Engineer at Oracle, who specializes in AI Agents and AI Swarms; and Katherine Burge, Instructional Designer and former Googler, who brought a sharp sense of structure to the sessions and was a standout presence throughout the cohort. Three practitioners who ship real things, not just people who teach about shipping.

The Structure: One Layer at a Time

What made this course stand out immediately was how intentionally it was designed. In a world overflowing with tools, frameworks, and competing tutorials, the course took a deliberate “one layer at a time” approach, which honestly felt like a breath of fresh air.

Week 1 started from the very beginning in the best way possible. Before writing a single line of code, students got set up with everything they’d actually need: GitHub accounts, package managers, the right tools for the job. The first deliverable was the AI-era equivalent of “Hello, World,” a simple app deployed live with a real URL. For someone just getting started, this is huge. You go from zero to something you can actually share in a single session, without spending a week confused about which tool to use out of the hundreds on the market.

Week 2 shifted toward building real interfaces using AI assistance, and added authentication and login flows to the existing app. This is where things started clicking for people. You’re not just building something static; you’re building something people could actually sign into.

Week 3 covered an area that most courses skip entirely but that every builder eventually hits: payments. Stripe integration was on the agenda, alongside database work and actual feature building. It’s easy to build a demo. It’s a different skill to build something monetizable, and the course treated that difference seriously.

Week 4 was production day. Students deployed their apps live and demonstrated them in front of the group. No safety net, no “this is just a prototype” disclaimer. You built it, you shipped it, you showed it.

Built for Everyone, Not Just Engineers

One of the things I genuinely appreciated was how the course handled its audience. The cohort was remarkably mixed, ranging from people with zero technical background to those who work in tech and just wanted to learn how AI changes the development workflow. Handling that kind of range well takes real thought and real patience, and the instructors had both.

Grant, Michael, and Katherine made sure nobody got left behind. They all had a real gift for reading the room and meeting students exactly where they were, whether that meant slowing down, reframing a concept, or simply making sure a quieter voice got heard. Questions at every level were welcomed, which takes a certain kind of confidence to maintain consistently across four weeks. All three also held office hours every week outside of class time, so anyone who felt like they were falling behind had a real avenue to catch up and get personalized attention.

I ended up talking to one of my co-attendees who was absolutely struck by GitHub. He told me he had no idea a tool like this existed and was thinking about how it would change the way he worked going forward. I don’t know about the instructors, but if I were them, I would consider it as a real win. And when your intent is for people to learn, that’s the kind of impact you don’t forget. I certainly didn’t.

Conversations Worth Having

Beyond the structured sessions, the access to the people in the room was genuinely valuable.

I spoke with Grant directly after one of the sessions, and he was candid about what they were still figuring out as educators. He mentioned they learned a lot about improving the learning experience in future cohorts, with a sharper focus and better pacing. It was refreshing to hear that from someone running the program. That kind of self-reflection is a good signal.

I also got time with both Michael and Katherine separately, and both conversations stuck with me. Michael’s perspective on where AI agents are heading in production environments gave me a lot to think about. Katherine was equally insightful, and her background explained a lot about what made her so effective in the room. She thinks about learning as a system: how information lands, what creates confusion, where people drop off, and how to design around all of that. I also shared LogIQ with both of them and got real, thoughtful feedback on the idea. Those moments, informal and unscheduled, were honestly some of the most valuable parts of the experience.

I plan to showcase LogIQ at the course’s upcoming demonstration day, and the feedback I got in those conversations has already shaped how I’m thinking about the pitch.

The DOCK at The LAB Miami

The venue deserves its own mention. The LAB Miami sits in the heart of Wynwood and describes itself as where Miami’s most relentless founders, technical talent, and startup operators come to build. It delivers on that. The space has the kind of energy that makes it easier to focus, to take the work seriously, and to feel like you’re part of something larger than just a Saturday class.

If you’re anywhere near Miami and haven’t checked out The LAB, it’s worth adding to your list. 10 out of 10, genuinely.

Why This Matters in the Current Moment

We’re at a point in time where the gap between “I have an idea” and “I have a product” has shrunk dramatically. The tools exist. The AI assistance exists. What a lot of people were missing was a structured, guided on-ramp that didn’t assume you already knew everything, and didn’t dump you into an endless sea of YouTube tutorials with no coherent path forward.

That’s what this course gave people. A coherent path.

I’ve been attending a lot of tech events in Miami over the past few months and the energy here is genuinely different. Miami doesn’t treat tech as an end in itself. People here are building things that blend technology with culture, hospitality, art, and business in ways that feel distinctly their own. The perspectives I’ve encountered have genuinely shifted how I think about the relationship between technology and the people who use it.

Courses like this one, and communities like DeepStation, are part of what’s fueling that. The more accessible building becomes, the more diverse the things that get built.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve ever felt like your ideas are stuck at the “I just don’t know how to build this” stage, this course was designed for you. It’s not a shortcut or a gimmick. It’s a structured, practitioner-led experience that actually gets you to a live product in four weeks, with the support to get there.

Huge thanks to Grant Kurz, Michael Friedberg, and Katherine Burge for building and running this cohort with so much care and patience, to The LAB Miami for hosting such a great space, and to DeepStation for consistently investing in the people and communities that make Miami’s tech scene what it is.

More posts on events coming. There’s a lot to cover.

Interested in attending a future cohort? Check out deepstation.ai for upcoming sessions and events.