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The "No BS" version of how startups are really built, taught by actual startup Founders who have lived through all of it. Hosts Wil Schroter and Ryan Rutan talk candidly about the intense struggles Founders face both personally and professionally as they try to turn their idea into something that will change the world.
Welcome back to the episode of
the Startup Therapy Podcast.
This is Ryan Rutan,
joined as always by my
friend, the founder,
and CEO of startups.com.
Woo.
Will the business of
predicting the future
is going outta business.
Right?
You know, forecasting used to
be like pattern spotting, right?
Mm-hmm.
Markets were slow enough
that a smart plan could
outrun the variance, but.
AI is kind of collapsing
that luxury at record pace.
I mean, it feels like every
assumption decays faster
than I can even socialize it.
Like are you even
thinking in terms of
long-term plans anymore?
Like what's your take on this?
Where are we going?
What is happening right now?
I gotta tell you, I am Mr.
Future, right?
I love the future.
Yes,
for the first time,
the future is scary.
And when I say that,
it's both exciting and
terrifying at the same time.
Because I look at founders
and obviously we are in the
thick of people building
businesses@startups.com, right?
Yes.
All these people coming to us,
and Ryan, how many people are
you talking to right now that
don't have an AI business?
Right now?
It's bringing everybody, right?
It's everybody.
It's blockchain and
crypto all over again.
Right?
Exactly.
But with a business model.
Yeah, with a business model.
Yeah.
That's exactly it.
That's exactly
it.
But what's interesting
about it is.
It's not that, yes, AI has
all these opportunities.
It's that all these
opportunities that are being
created are also at the
same time tearing away the
very fabric and foundation
of how we build businesses.
Yeah.
From how we get customers to who
we employ, to how we raise money
to literally everything that
we forecast and plan the future
against is being devoured,
ironically, by the very people
that are building the future.
A good example right now
that you know everybody
talks about is this idea of
developers basically digging
their own graves or the graves
of all other developers.
Like every time Claude comes
out with a new tool to write
code so that they don't need
more people to write code.
It's like the other
developers go, dude,
yeah.
Hey, stop doing.
Yeah.
Pump the brakes, homie.
Yeah, it's amazing.
No, it is.
And to your point, like
the pace at which this is
happening has, has accelerated.
I mean if you go back even
just two years now, I mean like
look at what's happening in two
years when these tools became
like very, very mainstream.
Right?
When all of a sudden your
aunt is now using chat bt
to answer questions, right?
Like.
It was a cool tool in
everybody's hand, right?
And that was just two years ago.
When you look at the way that
curve has accelerated between,
oh, it can kind of put out
some reasonable code now too.
It can put out an app now.
It can now connect
to backend database.
It can now rate it.
Now it's full product, right?
Just give it a
spec and it's off.
And so.
The sense that that horizon
is becoming even shorter,
that the future is becoming
more and more caste and fog.
At this point, man, my
plans just feel like
guesses with better font.
Like that's, that's all it
feels like at this point.
It's like, why am I bothering to
write this shit down by the time
I do, it's probably obsolete.
I think there is a
sense of excitement.
But a cloud and fog of
anxiety coming behind it.
Okay, so now for a lot of the
folks that that, that listen
to this podcast, you know,
they're all founders obviously.
There's a, a ton of jubilation,
but what we get to see is we
also get to see the other side
where, you know, we get to
kind of get behind the curtain
with people and they're like,
huh, didn't see that coming.
Right.
Or a lot of people with
existing businesses that are
like, huh, here's a great one.
You know?
What a great one.
How about being at
Google right now?
Yeah.
Where you've got one
guy in one room, okay?
Yep.
Trying to, to build the best,
most amazing AI engine ever.
Well, the other guy in the
other room, who by the way,
has the job that pays all
the bills called Search.
Yeah.
Is getting cannibalized by 'em.
It's like, dude, yeah,
you do.
What's, what's going on here?
Yeah.
You're literally watching the
snake eat its tail in real time.
It's unbelievable.
So this episode is gonna be
about not just the fact that AI
is doing all these great things,
it's also gonna be talking about
how many things AI is about
to make much more difficult
for us and the forecastability
of founders and kind of.
What we're seeing across
the board for founders that
this isn't all, you know,
sunshine and rainbows.
There's some really big
problems that this is
creating for us to be able to
forecast and build businesses.
So let's start with all of
the foundations that we've
been used to forecasting
against, like the big ones.
That have all gone away
or crumbling the fastest.
You're our chief marketing
officer@startups.com.
Let's talk about the
marketing pillars first.
What could you count on first?
What's going away?
Yeah, I mean like organic search
is becoming eviscerated, right?
That was something that if
you had taken the time to
build that, you had a fairly
defensible castle there, right?
Like right.
It takes a long time to build,
but then if you're paying
attention to the shifts, you
could, you could kind of say,
okay, well like, yeah, we're
losing some traffic here.
Okay, let's, let's bolster that.
Let's build some new content.
Let's make a microsite,
let's do whatever.
Just getting shot to pieces.
And so what you would typically
do in that place say, okay,
well right now somebody's
just eaten our lunch, so
we'll just buy it back.
We'll just switch over
to paid search until we,
until we buy that back.
But when nobody's searching.
What do you do?
Right?
Nobody's searching and,
and Ryan think of how many
businesses that affects, right?
So we are an online
business like, oh,
you're those tech guys.
Dude, it affects
plumbers, right?
It affects everybody that,
that has anything to do
with, you know, the internet
drives your business, which
is kind of almost everybody.
And it's happening
across channels, right?
So one of the things that
we, you know, everybody's
getting excited right now
because the barriers are
getting so much lower, right?
So this is one of the things
that you were saying before.
Founders are excited
about the fact that like,
look, I can code now.
I couldn't code before.
So can everybody else.
So can everybody else.
I can crank out 10 times as
much, uh, social media content
now that I could before.
So can everybody else.
That is the biggest problem.
Just keep inserting that
everywhere you look right and,
you know, the, the inundation of
content people are just becoming
blind to content now like it is.
It was already tough, right?
Yeah.
The last five years, in
terms of what it takes to
capture someone's attention,
has become extremely hard.
Yep.
In the last year, it has become
damn near impossible unless
you happen to be the end result
in a chat GBT conversation.
Right?
The chance that somebody's
just gonna come and visit you,
uh, has become significantly
lower, uh, and significantly,
exponentially lower.
You know what's funny
is yesterday all these
podcasts also double as
a newsletter that we send
out to all of our members.
And yesterday one of our
members wrote back and said,
will I gotta be honest,
this sounds like chat gt.
Right.
And he cited a couple of
things in the newsletter.
That's, that sounded like
Chachi, BT, and I said,
you know, what's the
most embarrassing thing?
It's not,
yeah.
It's
like the most
embarrassing thing.
No, I took the time
to write this so that it could
look like
AI content.
Actually did write that.
Right?
And, and, and I, I joked him, I
said, maybe I'm spending so much
time these days with Chachi bt
that I'm inheriting Chachi Bt.
Like, like their nuances.
But what I'm saying is
even my own prose doesn't
sound like me anymore.
I mean, and it,
it actually is me.
That'd be like us, somebody
watching this podcast and
make, honestly, it doesn't even
sound like you guys anymore.
Yeah.
Like god damn man.
I can tell, I can tell by the
way Ryan's looking directly
into the camera, that that's
just eye contact, right.
He's not really doing that.
Of course.
I'm, oh
my god damn,
taking years of practice
to learn to do this and now
it doesn't matter anymore
because Nvidia can just make
that happen no matter what.
I know.
And so.
I say this, okay, so that's
one pillar and, and we just,
I mean, scratch the surface.
One pillar was if I launch a
business, whatever it is, I have
certain places I can count on to
either develop or buy traffic.
Yeah, I can get
traffic to my thing.
Yep.
And for a very long time,
that was a fairly well
understood mechanic foundation.
Now it's kind of going away.
Yeah, let's look at some
other pillars, because that's
just one, and you touched on
something that I, I don't wanna
let go when it's easier for you.
It's easier for everyone
else, and it becomes
a race to the bottom.
Yes.
So, oh, I can post on
social media easier.
I can make, uh, responses
to people's comments on
my social media easier.
So can everyone else,
and they will really
quickly, really poorly.
Ryan, how many of the comments
on your social media, your
LinkedIn, whatever, are
actual people anymore?
Maybe, maybe, I'm not kidding.
Five to 10% max.
Right?
That
happened in
five seconds.
Was man, interesting.
Is that like Right?
And that, so this is one
of the funniest things.
So when, when people started
using AI to post a lot more
content, they were like,
and it's getting engagement.
And then if you go and
look at the engagement.
That's all AI nonsense, right?
That's not actually engagement.
So you know, everybody's
really excited, but they're
like, look, I can just crank
out stuff that sounds kind
of like me and I'm getting
better engagement than ever.
No, you're not.
Not when you actually peel
back the curtain there and
go, the wizard deposit is
standing back here commenting
on behalf of everyone.
That was my chat.
GPT.
Talking to everyone
else's chat, GBT.
Neat.
What have we done here?
Nothing.
Dude.
The signal to noise ratio
has never been further
out of whack, right?
Like
right
On the other hand, it's kind
of like walking through a
garden in November and finding
like a ripe strawberry.
Out there.
It's like when you do
find something, you
appreciate it so greatly.
It's like, God, I haven't
seen these, I haven't
seen these since June.
This is amazing.
Right?
But it's so rare and they're so
hard to find it, and there's not
like a reliable way to do it.
And I think that's what's
really frustrating.
Um, a lot of marketers right
now is that like, even if
you want to do the right
things, even if you are
building high quality content
and just really good stuff,
your ability to accurately
distribute that to people and
have them know is almost zero.
I agree.
So it's becoming so frustrating
that people aren't even
trying at this point.
I'm watching tons and tons
of marketers mail it in,
not because they're not
capable, not because they
don't want to, but because
it gets the same damn result.
So why not?
And that really scares
the shit outta me.
Okay.
Let's take that then.
So marketing is becoming an
imploding foundation, right?
Yes.
At a co on itself.
The very tools that we're
supposed to make it better yes.
Are actually eroding it.
Okay.
Oh, completely.
Big time.
So that's not a small one, guys.
That's a giant one.
Next up, as part of
building a business, we
are gonna hire talent.
We're gonna hire humans.
Okay?
Now this, this has a
two-sided concern to it.
One was, well, I need to
hire, this is again, internet
companies, but whatever.
I need to hire developers.
I need to hire marketers.
I need to hire, um, ops people
and hire all these people.
And now it's like, do
I, what would they do?
Remember everybody had the
consummate social media manager.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What does that
person do anymore?
Right?
Like it's become less of a bot.
Now, again, I'm not knocking
the social media manager.
Let's move over
to the developer.
Okay?
Yeah.
Ryan, you've been cranking out
stuff and lovable as an example.
Yep.
Right?
If you were building a new
company five years ago, there's
absolutely none of what you've
been cranking out that you
could have done by yourself.
Impossible.
At that level, like connect
to a database layer or
anything else like that?
Nope.
Let alone make it responsive.
All the other things, right?
Forget there's so
many things that
been possible,
forget
about, right?
No different than
prior to Shopify.
You, in order to get
that level of e-commerce
and CMS and everything
else, like tied to that.
No way.
And it's damn near free.
That's the other
side of it, right?
This isn't like HubSpot pricing.
It's so cheap that
it's inconsequential.
Like the, the cost of it
doesn't actually matter.
So who are you hiring for that
as part of your new company?
Yeah.
Right.
And are you hiring somebody?
Because if you do like, and then
you find out five minutes later
that their job is a prompt now.
Yeah.
What's that look like?
Right.
Right.
In the converse, if you are
that person, the social media
manager, the developer, like
people who are fundamentally
the staples of our ecosystem,
of our startup world.
Right.
Every startup weekend.
Right.
You know, we always talk
about Startup weekend.
I don't even if
it's around anymore.
There was always a, a
social person or a marketing
person, a developer person
or product person, whatever.
Like you're putting
together your role playing,
uh, team, you know, it's
exactly right.
You, yeah.
You're dungeon
Dragon Party.
Gotta have a warrior, a mage.
And all those people
aren't employed now.
It's bizarre.
Yes.
And, and the reason I'm bringing
this up is because of definitely
a fundamental pillar of building
a company was hiring people.
Now there's so many, some people
listening and they're gonna
say, well, that's bullshit.
I'm still hiring
people, et cetera.
I get it.
We, we have a staff.
It's not like we have
nobody that works here,
but it's getting weird.
It's getting weird.
Right, and I'm not,
I'm not pointing this
to toward our staff.
I'm saying for
startups as a whole.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
It's getting weird to say, what
are we hiring for@startups.com?
We don't have a single open
position 'cause we can't
figure out who we'd even hire.
Right.
How weird is that?
Yeah, yeah.
You're constantly trying
to figure out how the
people you already have.
Probably could and should
or are already doing more
than they ever were before.
And so just by virtue
of, of some of those
productivity increases.
Now again, like I said before,
some of those actually came
with performance drops, right?
Meaning that like I can crank
out 10 X the content that I ever
could on LinkedIn and it'll get.
20 x the engagement it
ever did with absolutely
zero meaningful results.
Right, right.
So there, there is that side
of it, but it seems like all of
those productivity gains and all
of this like expanded capability
just erased future hiring
needs at, at least for a, the
foreseeable future, which again.
He's now like, dude, do
we have a roadmap anymore?
I feel like our roadmap
is just an etches sketch
being written by somebody
in a really bumpy ass car.
Right?
Like it's just constantly
erasing itself.
Shaking.
Yeah, because it's
a great metaphor.
It's a self shaking
etch of sketch.
That's what we're building
our roadmaps on at this point.
How the hell do you hire
against something like that,
buddy?
Let's go back five years.
Let's go back to COVID.
Oh my God, right.
Um, where it was just a hiring
spree where people needed 400
engineers to build a venture
funded, funded company.
Yep.
Right?
Yep.
And, and, and what I'm getting
at here, it's not that you
don't need to hire anybody.
I'm not saying that.
I'm saying one of the
fundamental pillars of
building a startup was
hiring a ton of people, or at
least hiring it all, right?
Yep.
In that whole world.
Is getting so twisted
and turned upside down.
And again, this episode is
about the predictability.
Yeah, it's about stuff.
We used to be able to just
say, yes, you'll need that.
Or yes, it's a known
and we're going, what
the hell just happened?
What the hell just happened?
Bring it back to hiring.
At this point, like if I
were to think about a person
that I'm not already working
with, one of the number one
things on the top of my, my
list would be swap ability.
Right?
Yeah.
Like as I'm thinking
about a human stack like
this has, this person has
to be swappable, right?
Yep.
I have to, to contract
for outcomes at this
point, not roles.
It just has to be like outcome
driven, which may only be.
Two or three weeks
worth of work.
But that's as far
out as we can see.
As far as I'm gonna plan,
that's as far out as I can hire.
If hire is even really it,
like at this point, contracting
would be where it's at for
me, not full-time roles.
Uh, because honestly, like
I wouldn't feel comfortable.
I wouldn't feel
responsible hiring
somebody when I know that.
The whole thing that I'm
gonna have them doing might
get completely eviscerated,
obliterated within weeks.
Right?
That feature that we're specing
out or that campaign that
we're building out might turn
into a prompt next week, or it
might just become completely
irrelevant because now chat,
GPT does the thing that we
were planning on marketing.
Right?
Who knows?
Okay, so let's stick with that.
'cause you're, you're now
talking about the next
pillar, which is product.
Yeah,
it used to be that if we took
the time to build and invest
in a product, that we had some
level of understanding that
that product would be relevant
for some period of time.
You know, a moment ago, you and
I were talking, you know, uh,
prior to the show, uh, we were
talking about, uh, TurboTax.
Yep.
We were talking about your
products that like, you know,
have been around forever.
Forever.
Yeah.
That thing has been the
world's greatest cash cow.
You know, Intuit is
actually just the amount
of money that company has
made on frigging TurboTax.
Yes.
Which is a dog shit
piece of software Yeah.
That I've used
religiously for decades.
Right.
It might as well come on a three
and a half inch floppy disc.
Right.
I
mean, it probably still does
'cause they haven't updated the
product enough to, you know,
make it worth having a cd.
But I say this, they have
an understanding, they have
a pact with the market that
says, this product does
this thing, and we do this
thing in the, in the market.
And you know us.
You trust us.
And for better or for worse,
for the price point that
we offer, this is the most
efficient way to do this thing.
And they, and that pact is
held true and then it didn't.
Right?
Now look, software consumes
itself all the time, but
this one's different.
This is like, it gets consumed
and then gone forever.
Yeah.
How is an entire tax
planning industry
getting consumed forever?
And I'm just picking on
one randomly yesterday,
and again, I'm kind of date
stamping this a little bit.
We're in Q1 of, uh, 2026.
The Washington Post let go a
third of their staff, right?
Most people don't
notice these headlines.
I watch all this stuff and
they said part of what's
happening is that people
aren't searching anymore.
They're just using ai.
That's just the, the
Washington Post, and that
obviously affects everybody
with an information business.
They can no longer deliver
news because the people that
would look for news don't even
go to the internet to them.
Right?
Right.
They got subsumed
by AI and chat.
Think about how many entire
industries just vanished.
Like Thanos snapping his finger.
Yeah.
Right.
Whoa.
You can't even rely on the
fact that if you build a
product that the entire market.
Won't just implode
dude in a year.
In a year.
Right?
That's, and that, and
that's right now, so this
is where that's happening
right now.
Absolutely.
Crazy to think about.
Again, this, the curve is, is
getting steeper and steeper.
It's accelerating.
And so, you know, watching
industry implode in a year
might happen in a week
by this time next year.
Because the, the speed, the
adoption and the rate of
change is just continuously
accelerating at this point.
You know, something that's
really funny about everything
we talk about here is
that none of it is new.
Everything you're dealing
with right now has been done a
thousand times before you, which
means the answer already exists.
You may just not know it.
But that's okay.
That's kind of what
we're here to do.
We talk about this stuff on
the show, but we actually
solve these problems all
dayLong@groups.startups.com.
So
if any of this sounds familiar,
stop guessing about what to do,
let us just give you the answers
to the test and be done with it.
The last one I wanna touch on
and again, and we'll, we will
just kind of like, like lay
out all the ones is investment.
I think this one's just ing.
Yeah.
It's not being
talked about enough.
Yeah.
Investment.
If you are an
investor right now.
You know, you are definitely
one of the pillars of
the startup ecosystem.
You've gotta be saying AI
is the greatest thing, so
many opportunities, but if
you're watching all of these
other pillars fall, there's
gotta be a part of you going.
Well, where's my capital go?
Exactly.
Yeah.
Because my capital actually went
to all of those things, will
and Ryan just described, yeah,
I put capital in marketing,
I put capital in people, and
I put capital in product.
If those things don't
make sense anymore.
Ah, where does that money go?
Exactly?
Data centers.
Yeah, exactly.
Basically, yeah.
It goes to compute, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah.
When talent shifts from
headcount to headless
product shifts from apps
to prompts and agents, and
distribution goes from search
to synthetic answers, it's
like, what are you putting
your money into at that point?
That's a problem truly.
Now, again, you can, you
can look on the other
side of it and say.
Not a problem for me.
I'm a founder.
I didn't wanna deal
with those guys anyway.
And you would be correct, right?
Yes, you would be correct.
Right?
Amen.
However, that is a fundamental
institution within the startup
ecosystem that is losing a home.
Now, I'm sure you have
no lack of, of investors
that will say that is a.
Totally untrue, and here's
a whole thesis where so many
industries will built that will
require so much capital, yada,
yada, believe some of that, I
believe, yes, there are some
foundational layers that you're
seeing right now that will
require a voluminous amount
of capital, but if every one
of those foundational pillars.
Is all being consumed at
a record rate, and by way
of that, their efficiency
is taking away cost.
I have a hard time believing
that the need for capital is
going to become exponential
or more so anytime soon.
Anytime soon
is all of the costs and all of
the the traditional cost-based
barriers to starting a startup.
Reduced geometrically
exponentially.
The idea that cash still
needs to be part of the
picture becomes a lot
harder unless we're just
gonna start compensating
founders for taking risks.
Right.
Which I'd be okay with that.
Right.
It's this weird thing
because it's almost
like if, if you're a vc.
And you're looking at four
year projections and more
so the, uh, use of funds
that people are raising for.
And obviously raise amounts
have gone up geometrically.
I mean, we are in the
business of helping people
raise, so we see it.
Uh, and you're looking
at use of funds.
There's gotta be a version
of you that's like.
I wanna give more.
I wanna write bigger
checks because that's
how I raise bigger funds.
But at the same time, like,
have you not seen what's
going on in the world?
No.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What are you going
to spend it on?
Yeah.
Like I loved when you
hired 400 engineers.
That worked great for
me as an investor.
Yeah.
Because you needed lots of me.
Right.
But if you needed 400
engineers now to do whatever
the hell it is you're doing,
unless you're building
some foundational layer.
I'm shocked.
Play that out for a second.
Will.
And you're, and you're far more
versed in this space than I am.
'cause what we saw, right?
It's, it's not like now that
rounds are exponentially
larger and they are.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
When, when rounds became
exponentially larger, it's
not like the investors
started taking exponentially
more of the cap table.
Right.
They're taking the same
chunk of the cap table.
Yeah.
Rounds just got more expensive.
Overall valuations
were, were higher.
All this was higher.
Now, I guess theoretically the
final outcomes maybe became.
Geometrically larger,
uh, in some cases, maybe
exponentially larger, but the
odds didn't change any, right?
It's not like because we're
pouring more money into these
companies, they're more,
more sure of succeeding.
So did anything actually change?
And so it's theoretically, could
it just, could we just see a
regression to the mean, where
the rounds become much smaller?
But so did the
initial valuations.
Which would actually make all
the sense in the world because
the risk profile is gonna go
up significantly more because
this app you're building,
this software, this company,
this whatever, could be wiped
out by something else really,
really quickly because that
time to deploy, time to build
all those things we just talked
about are so much faster.
So theoretically, that is
one place within startup dom
that I could actually see.
Normalizing.
Yeah, I was gonna say,
I, I definitely see a
rubber band on that one.
Yeah.
And the reason being is because
when AI first comes out and
everyone's like, oh, we're gonna
do this, but with ai, and we
say this to, to startups all
the time, so founders, listen.
If you're, you know, doing a
SF, we say, yes, that's true.
Right now you're
doing law something.
But with ai, cool.
Yes, absolutely
makes a ton of sense.
You do understand that
within 24 months, that's how
everyone will be doing law.
Yeah.
The fact that you're doing it,
it's exactly like saying, but
we'll be selling books online.
Yes.
But eventually everyone
looks how you'll sell
books.
Course you sell books.
They will be online.
Yeah, exactly.
Right?
Yeah.
You have to be, you have
to be able, you have
to take it beyond that.
And man, that's the thing that
I think is so fascinating right
now is, is, and it's not just
that AI as a whole becomes
table stakes, but so many
things that were problematic
or challenging from a cost
or complexity standpoint,
they're becoming table
stakes, right, left and right.
Left and right, and
so I think that.
Just, again, it just makes it so
hard to see around the corner.
We're moving so fast and,
and the corner's so sharp at
this point, folding back to
predicting the future now, but
it's just, it's so complex.
Well, so if you and I build
AI TurboTax and we're, we're
gonna say we're coming after
Intuit, we're gonna take their
market share, et cetera, then,
then, right now, in this very
moment, in 2026, we by all
means, have justified the upside
potential of our valuation.
Yep.
What I'm saying, the
rubber band happens.
When you fast forward to 27, 28.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
When everyone can do what we're
doing in our defensibility
to have taken, including into
it, by the way, can do that.
How do we maintain
our defensibility?
How we do we maintain our
moat when the moat has
lowered for everybody.
That's where it gets
way more interesting.
That's exactly it.
You know, right now AI might
be a competitive advantage
for some companies that are
just moving a little faster
and not, not even a lot.
You bet.
But it compresses build time.
Right.
But it shrinks moats, or
in some cases it's gonna
completely dry them up.
Right.
Turns products into features
like full on products.
Like you think about that,
like the fact that TurboTax
is a product, right?
That may not even be a
product category anymore.
That might just be part of
personal financial suite and
just every literal, literally
everything happens there.
Your banking's there, your
taxations there, your savings
there, your investments, right?
Because we're seeing
products getting turned
into features at at machine
speed at this point, right?
Right.
Which is crazy.
I agree.
Now, here's what happens.
All of these things, all of
these pillars, all of these
changes, as they start to
drop, it starts to compound
anxiety and watch what happens.
Right now we are in this,
oh my God, this, this
party's gonna be amazing.
The hangover hasn't
happened yet.
Right
Ryan?
I think you're starting to
see the first bits of it.
It was, I'm feeling it.
Oh my God.
I can create more content
on social and then you're
like, wait a minute.
Hold on.
So can everybody else.
Oh my God.
I can do this thing in, um,
uh, there's one new AI app.
Yes.
So can everybody else,
I think what will start
to happen is we'll start
to see this compounding
anxiety where founders
start to go, wait a minute,
now everybody can do this.
That's a problem.
Right.
And that's when things
start to get really
interesting when everybody
has the machine gun, right?
Like war becomes a lot more
complex and, and, and I think
that's where we're headed next.
I feel like we're at that
point in the arms race where
everybody looks around and goes.
Shit, this isn't gonna work.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
We're all armed to the
teeth, which just means
we're all gonna face a lot
of pain because of this.
Yeah, no, I, I think the
compounding anxiety thing is,
is huge right now, and I think
there's still a lot of people
looking around for certainty.
Which look never really been
part of the startup space.
Right?
Even if you thought that it
was there, there are a few
things that are certain, none
of them are fun, but I think
at this point we have to give
up on certainty a little bit
and, and what I'm looking for,
instead of certainty, I'm saying
what I need is cadence, right?
I need cadence.
What does
that look like for you?
It's essentially like
decision making frameworks.
It's, it's how we're deciding
what to keep, what to kill,
and getting into, you know,
like going from quarterly
strategies to, to monthly
strategy and to weekly tactics.
You know, you and I talked to
this before on the podcast.
We, we plan in, in, in
week long sprints, right?
Yeah.
You and I down manages their
time on, on weekly schedules,
um, which helps, right?
And so having that cadence
and basically going back to
what I said before around
the human component of,
of swap ability, right?
Really.
All of my plans are modular
and component based.
At this point.
They have to be, because
I need that cadence.
I need to have that cadence
in place so that if something
does need to swap, I'm not
starting again from Fresh plan.
It's okay.
The plan was go get
traffic for this.
This is still valid,
this still needs traffic.
But that thing we were gonna
use to go get traffic isn't.
Um, so we don't need to
start from zero, but we
have to have something else
that we can plug in there.
Right?
Really?
Quickly.
So I can't be certain that a,
that a quarterly plan around,
uh, social media traffic
acquisition is gonna work.
So I need a cadence of
an operating cadence that
allows me to, to quickly
act on those changes.
I think it's interesting
though because we get all of
these different folks that
are part of the ecosystem
with a very uncertain future.
At the same time, you know, we
talked about this a moment ago
with these pillars falling,
and that's why we opened up
the conversation there because
again, if you're an investor,
and investor seem to be very
cocky about the future, but
there's no version where you're
sitting there going, oh, this
is all gonna work out great.
Ryan, if you and I had a
fund right now, yes, there
are so many industries ripe
for the picking, right?
If we can invest in the person
who takes over TurboTax,
we're gonna do great.
Our concern would
be, and then what?
What happens after that?
Like how do they stay relevant?
How do they stay on top?
And, and we'll be
good for a minute.
The second part is
we're in the business of
deploying lots of capital.
Like that's
specifically what we do.
Capital efficiency
actually isn't necessarily
our friend, right?
When, when startups needed
to hire 400 engineers to be
competitive, that actually
kind of worked for us, right?
Yep.
They needed a lot of us, right?
The other compounding anxiety,
and again, these are all the
players in the same space
at the same time, kind of
freaking out a little bit.
If you were a developer
right now, right?
Who was the holy grail most
protected made man there was in
the startup ecosystem, right?
The rockstar developer, right?
Like you were literally,
literally gave the, the
rockstar developer, okay.
That you had that level of cred.
You're worried about your
job and how could you not be?
Right.
If, if that was my trade, if I
was specifically writing code
and I'm sitting in front of
all these tools and be like,
dude, that's literally, you
know, I'll give you a perfect
example because I actually
live this, I live this in.
Ryan, you'll appreciate this.
In 1999, I was you running
a large web design firm?
Yep.
And on average we were getting
paid somewhere around a
million dollars to build what's
essentially like a brochure
website for like massive grants.
Yep.
Right.
Yep.
And you'll, you know
where this is going.
In.
One day, one of our, uh,
designers comes in and
he's like, Hey, man, I,
I stumbled upon this site
called template monster.com.
And uh, these templates
are actually really good.
They're like, in some cases
better than what we design.
I'm like, yeah.
And he is like, and
it's a hundred dollars.
I'm like, a hundred
dollars for what?
Uhhuh?
He's like, the whole thing.
The whole thing.
Yeah.
Every single PDF or uh, pixel
p SD file, you need to do
three is like full HTML
and like, you know, at the
time, JPEGs and whatever,
and I'm like, huh.
Right.
That's exactly the way I
would feel right now if I was
a quarter million or a half
million dollar a year developer.
Yeah.
And I sat and saw what
Claude did last week
and I'd be like, hmm.
Now granted, I'm not saying
there's no value in those folks.
I'm saying you lose
the premium, right?
The the premium always comes
with the fact that there's
not enough of you, right?
It's just that simple.
There's not enough of you.
Yep.
Or if I just graduated with
a CS degree and I'm jumping
in into a market where I was
told five seconds ago that
this is where all the jobs
are and the people that are
veterans in this space are
like, dude, where am I gonna go?
I mean, come on, man.
Doesn't give you warm fuzzies.
No, that's gonna, that's
gonna drive serious anxiety.
And I think we're starting
to see that some of the
thinking around is already
not aging particularly well.
And this thinking's only, you
know, maybe nine months old,
which was, okay, look, this
isn't gonna take your job, it's
just gonna make you be able
to do 10 x more of your job.
Maybe true, but it also implies
that there's a need for 10
x more of your job times the
number of people who also
have your job and the number
of people who want your job.
Right.
It doesn't change that.
Right.
Like just because we
can, it's musical.
Just because we can write more
content doesn't mean like I
can write 10 x more content.
Cool.
Do people have 10 x
more time to read?
Because if not, what the hell
are we gonna do with all of it?
It's really interesting.
And so what I'm pointing out
here, and you know, this lack of
forecastability is coming on top
of these pillars are dropping.
The folks that are the
cornerstones of this
ecosystem are getting awfully
anxious for good reasons.
Yeah.
And I say this, Ryan,
because it's, I love doing
episodes where we just
talk about how great.
AI is, and I do,
I do believe it.
I think that, you know, AI
in a whole is phenomenal.
It's
great.
It is.
But I also wanna point
out, shit's getting
a little gnarly man.
Right?
It is there.
There's some stuff happening
behind the scenes that
no one's really talking
about, and there's more
of it than people realize.
A lot.
There's a lot more
like I just, here.
Here's one, right?
I was talking to a group
of other founders the
other day about this.
When founders, teams,
investors, vendors altogether
can no longer price, risk,
commitment melts, man, right?
Again, it's that
compounding anxiety.
Everybody has that commitment
and nobody wants to be the
sucker who bets on a product.
That becomes a frigging plugin.
Right.
And so one of the, the concerns
then is do we actually start
to see a slowdown in the rate
of like overall progress and
thinking and development, right?
The thing we haven't seen yet
is that AI's not out there just
going, well, I just figured out
this problem that people have.
I'm gonna go solve
it all by myself.
Maybe it will get there, right?
Not yet.
Right.
But it's still people
deciding and people chasing
real problems and people
having those problems.
And so I think that that's,
it's, it's a super interesting
thing to think about is
that as you start to take
away the incentives, bad
things can start to happen.
We saw this, here's a parallel.
I don't remember
the timing on this.
I probably used to, but at
the point which we started
to take away financial
incentive from teachers.
The US educational
system started to decline
very, very seriously.
Right?
And we started to do the
same thing within medicine
and medical outcomes
started to to decline.
Seriously, we take away the
financial incentive from from
innovators and technologists.
What happens, right?
We'll see the same thing play
out again, and I'm afraid
that's what we're running
towards at this point.
Here's what I'll say though,
and you touched on this.
It turns out that of all the
people that are kind of, you
know, had this compounding
anxiety, the one group that
happens to be very well
suited to all of this Oh yeah.
Are founders, like of all
the people that were like
built for risk, that were
built for chaos, that were
quite like specifically built
to like constantly look for
problems and constantly figure
out how to tear shit up.
Are founders now?
Yeah.
Granted, those founders, they'd
need help from all those people,
and that's always been the way.
But I would argue, and I find
this fascinating, that if
there's ever a time for the
people who had it in them, who
basically starve for chaos.
Yeah,
this is your moment, man.
If you are built like that.
I think I mentioned this
once, once long ago.
There was one of the greatest,
uh, commercials I've ever
seen, and it was for the
Marines and, and it showed
this huge explosion, right?
And all this smoke and
dust, and it showed all
these people running away,
and then it just panned
in on this one guy's face.
And he looked at the camera
and then he looked at the
smoke and he just started
running directly to it.
And they basically said.
For the people who run toward
not fear or something like that.
And it said US Marines.
Right.
And I was like, that's
the most badass commercial
I've ever seen in my life.
That's kind of what
I picture right here.
Feels like where
we're at right now.
Yeah.
And look to, to your point, like
this is what we're here for.
We're here to solve problems.
And if what we're saying is
that, wow, this is taking
away our ability to solve
them like we did, it's
gonna create a whole bunch
of new problems, a whole
bunch of new problems
like unemployment, like
income, like you name it.
Like there's gonna be all kinds
of brand new problems that
are created, that you're gonna
need solutions at some point.
And so I think that's,
that's part of this is
if I'm trying to use a
crystal ball at this point.
I'm not looking at, okay, how do
we keep doing exactly what we're
doing in the context of ai?
Like with, with all the changes
that AI require, I'm like,
okay, what happens when we
stop doing all this stuff?
Yep.
Right?
What does that look like?
Right.
Let's solve those problems
because they're coming.
I can't predict exactly how
they arrive or why, or when.
You can sort of see the writing
on the wall at this point.
There's going to be some
really big ass problems.
And to your point, that's
what we're here for.
This is what we do.
We're in the problem business.
So if you look around and take
a look, reverse everything we
just said on this show, right?
Yeah.
Reverse that and say, Hey, if.
Investors are gonna
have problems.
Dude, let's think about coming
in and becoming an investor that
that's capital efficient, right?
Yeah.
People are gonna have
problems being able
to, to find customers.
You know, marketing's
gonna change.
Let's become a new type
of agency that figures out
how to get people in this,
this new category, right?
People are gonna have
problem finding employment.
Let's become a new type
of recruiter that recruits
like in that business.
In every one of these
situations, when things
get upended, there are
more problems, and we are
in the problem business.
Like that is what we
actually specialize in.
So when I'm saying that there's
a lack of forecastability,
there is, there is a tremendous
lack of forecastability.
Right?
But with that, it just so
happens that the only people
that are actually built in,
suited for this massive bit
of compounding chaos are us.
Right?
Like, and we can look
at this like, oh shit,
this is hard to forecast.
Or we can look at this and go.
Dude, it's party time.
Yeah.
I'm running straight toward
this thing and it's not gonna
be easy and it's gonna be kinda
weird, but this is what I'm
built for and this is what I'm
gonna focus all of my time and
energy toward, and I'm gonna
run toward this problem while
everybody's running away.
I'm gonna run toward it and
I'm gonna go build shit.
In the hardest time ever.
I'm gonna build the
biggest thing I've ever
done in my entire life.
Overthinking your startup
because you're going it alone.
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you shouldn't because instead,
you can learn directly from
peers who've been in your shoes.
Connect with bootstrap
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helping them win in the
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