Yes! All startups are created to solve a problem, regardless of the tools used. Apps are simply tools to solve human problems. Because humans will always have challenges to address, software will remain a vital tool. While AI makes writing software much easier. It's likely to lead to an explosion of new apps. Only those that fill a genuine need will survive. Your job is to identify these new problems and determine which apps to build.
Simple apps are a thing of the past. If an LLM can generate an app in a few sittings, it isn't a saleable product. However, people will still pay for a fully engineered application that solves a complex problem that AI cannot easily replicate.
Regarding copies, there is always room for more than one solution to the same need. Your challenge is to figure out how to stand out. A fundamental business hurdle, that has existed since the beginning.
Here's an idea that always bear's fruit. We humans love to do things as easy as possible. Write something that saves energy, time and is simple then people will pay for it.
And most of the time that problem is “the founders don’t have as much money as they want”.
> Apps are simply tools to solve human problems. Because humans will always have challenges to address, software will remain a vital tool.
You make it sound like it’s something noble, but let’s not pretend most software companies these days don’t have “make me rich” as the top goal. Effectively everything VC backed (yes, including by Y Combinator) falls in that category. That’s why pivots are a thing. Most founders these days don’t give a shit about what they’re building or customers, they only care about the payoff.
This seems like a very jaded comment, and if it’s because you got burned in a startup, then you have my sympathy and I’m sorry for debating. Just know that not everyone is running on nothing but greed. You might be confusing VCs with startup founders a bit. VCs are definitely profit motivated, by design. It’s going too far, and incorrect IMO, to suggest even VCs, or anyone involved, doesn’t care about building solutions or care about customers. All founders I’ve ever met care about what they make, and most VCs care about it somewhat but also care that the founders care strongly; they don’t often fund founders who don’t care.
So can you source any of your claims of “most”? I just looked it up, and the majority of software startups are self-funded or angel/seed-funded, not VC funded. Founders that don’t care about product or customers enough tend to fail. Founders that only care about the payoff don’t tend to self-fund their startup.
That said, everyone and all companies have financial incentives. There’s nothing unique or new about software startup founders there. The entire economy runs on profit motive. And I’ve seen a lot more people who don’t care about customers or product working in large companies making a nice easy salary working 9 to 5 (or less)!
My personal sampling of founders vs company workers is that founders are, by far, the ones who care more deeply about building something new and delighting customers and growing a sustainable business, care enough to start working nights and weekends, go years with crappy pay or no pay, to do every job in the company from engineering to design to marketing to support to filing taxes. Some people certainly are at least partially motivated to accept these sacrifices for the chance at a payoff, but lots of founders would prefer a lifestyle company where they get to keep building and don’t have the insane pressures and politics of a unicorn company.
Pivots are a thing because good product ideas often are not good business ideas. Startups that fail to pivot are the ones that die, and if your startup dies you don’t get to care about what you’re building or about customers at all. If you want companies to care about product and customers and not profit, then you should embrace sustainable economics, and that means making things people will pay for, and when they’re not paying, making something else.
You’re arguing something different than @latexr did, and picking a VC as your example makes sense here but fails to counter the fact that most startups aren’t VC funded. Still, you’re also like GP confusing VC motivation with founder motivation. It’s possible for founders to care deeply about the problems they’re solving, and for the company’s primary goal to be an exit, at the same time. Both can be true, contrary to what GP claimed.
There are an infinitesimal number of tech based startups that are “lifestyle companies” that were bootstrapped and use revenues to grow without taking investor money.
There are even fewer that are “successful” - ie where everyone involved wouldn’t be better off just working as a LOB CRUD developer.
The goal of the founders don’t matter even if they do “care” about the customer. The customer is at the whim of the strategies of the investors of the company and if an acquired, the customer will probably get an email about “our amazing journey” when the company is shut down
These smaller companies are doing well, they just aren’t incentivised to tell you about it. The VC backed companies are, either targeting you as a consumer or an investor and n an eventual IPO.
You’re not debating me, you’re contradicting @latexr.
> infinitesimal
You invented a narrow niche to knock down there, but as I said, I actually looked it up and the majority of startup companies that form are seed or self funded, not VC funded. I was responding to @latexr’s claims that “most” founders don’t care about product at all, which I believe is just false. You’re arguing with me about something else, and I don’t know what your point is yet. Mine is that caring about customers and caring about money aren’t exclusive things, a successful business must do both.
> Every company “cares about their customers” to the point where that’s how they make their money.
And if they don’t make money, they fail and lose the opportunity to care about customers. It’s a boring tautology to say that companies care about money. The point is that @latexr is wrong about assuming that caring about money means they don’t care about product or customers.
It’s not at all a tautology. A company that cares about its customers can balance its need to make money and leave money on the table because it’s not in the best interest of the customers.
Agreed, that’s what I’ve been saying from the top. Again, you’re disagreeing with @latexr, and agreeing with me.
The tautology is that all companies care about money. Companies care about money by definition. Many companies and many people in companies also care about customers and product quality. However, there is an absolute limit to how much money a company can leave on the table, regardless of what the customer wants, and serving the customer’s best interest becomes a ‘bad decision’ and threatens the ability for the company to do anything for the customer the moment it’s unprofitable, as soon as costs exceed income. This effectively means that at some level, companies must prioritize profit over service, otherwise service will cease to exist. The balance must lean in favor of the company on average over time.
That's a cynical take, but a more positive interpretation is that pivots are needed if your company isn't actually solving a problem. Otherwise people would pay for it, and the founders would be getting rich. So you need to pivot until you actually create a solution to a problem that people will pay for.
One that you apparently agree with, given the rest of your comment.
> you need to pivot until you actually create a solution to a problem that people will pay for.
In other words: You don’t care about the problem, you care about the profit from selling a solution.
If a startup is “created to solve a problem” and then pivots to solve a different problem because the first one wasn’t profitable, that means profit was the priority, not solving the problem.
There is a chasm of difference between “I care about this problem and want to solve it, but I also need to think how to make it sustainable” and “I don’t really care what I’m tackling, as long as I make bank”.
I would expect it to be obvious that caring about making money above fixing a problem means the problem won’t be solved that well compared to the alternative.
Are you really going to claim you never encountered a startup that is obviously shitting on customers and degrading the experience to make a buck? Do you honestly believe all startups are created to solve a problem (the original claim I responded to) and none are created with the intent of being the next “unicorn” to make the founders rich? If that is the case, search the term “enshittification”. Surely you’ll have encountered it by now. Pick whatever example helps you understand the point.
I don't see how its "obvious" at all. I think most problems wouldn't be solved at all with this view because most problems aren't something people care about. Money gives people the incentive to solve every problem possible. Someone who "cares" is free to solve it even better and make even more money.
This is to some extent a false dichotomy. Generally speaking, products that prioritize fixing a problem “above” making money do not exist. There are no alternatives. Businesses can’t sustain that. Sometimes it happens for a short while, and eventually they reduce the level of service, or charge more money, or die.
I don’t know why you’re picking on startups. Big companies are where you see enshittification the most, and it’s because economies of scale require them to cut costs. Startups can often use VC fuel to offer delightful and unprofitably superior solutions to problems. That goes away after startups graduate to being real companies.
Read the thread. I’m not “picking on startups”, the conversation is about startups. Yes, Big companies do it too, that’s just not what this particular conversation is about.
I see, so no comment at all on the fact that caring about products and customers requires making money?
I have read the thread, thank you, and you certainly have been talking about startups and founders as if these issues are unique to them. It’s not just ‘yeah yeah big companies too’… if you actually care about and study enshittification at all, it is, by and large, entirely coming from big companies, and it isn’t new to software, it has always been happening. The only thing new is a cute term for it that got popular recently. Old business terms that mean the same thing include: loss leader, hook product, bait and switch, and plain old “promotion”. Regardless of what the topic here is, it doesn’t make sense to harp on startups over quality going down. For that to happen, it had to be higher at some point, and that point is: startups. VC funding might lead to some quality decline, but all companies trim and get worse as they grow, and always have. Startup is the phase when companies provide the highest level of product or service.
This is why I like using mathematical or algorithmic approaches to solve difficult problems. Writing programs that use statistics, mathematics, optimization, analytical geometry, etc guarantee a certain level of security from the swarms of CRUD merchants flooding the market.
These startups were not created to solve a problem, some didn’t even have a technical person. These startups were created to be VC bait and hopefully sell out to the bigger fool
Simple apps are a thing of the past. If an LLM can generate an app in a few sittings, it isn't a saleable product. However, people will still pay for a fully engineered application that solves a complex problem that AI cannot easily replicate.
Regarding copies, there is always room for more than one solution to the same need. Your challenge is to figure out how to stand out. A fundamental business hurdle, that has existed since the beginning.
Here's an idea that always bear's fruit. We humans love to do things as easy as possible. Write something that saves energy, time and is simple then people will pay for it.