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Well, what's a tool? I would say: 1. It solves a problem. Doesn't have to be a completely unsolved problem, can just be a new solution. Or even just new packag
by fhd2 2y ago
Well, what's a tool? I would say:
1. It solves a problem. Doesn't have to be a completely unsolved problem, can just be a new solution. Or even just new packaging on an old solution. But it needs to solve some kind of problem.
2. It's trustworthy. Some people get a tool to suite their own process. But the majority, from anecdotal evidence, will adopt the tool's process. There's this idea that "these guys know how to do invoicing so I don't have to think about invoicing if I use their invoicing tool".
3. It's known. A bit philosophical, but if something exists that nobody _knows_ solves a problem they might not even know they have, how much of a useful tool is it, really?
DropBox is an interesting example. It wasn't exactly a major scientific breakthrough, and a lot of people asked "why don't people just use FTP?". If you focus on (1), DropBox looked close to pointless. But what they did is nail (2) and (3).
Now, if you subscribe to the hype, you might argue (1) and (2) will soon be covered. AI will magically solve your problem and be a universal domain expert telling you what to do, so you don't have to think about it. You might also argue that it will magically solve (3), with stuff like Gemini Live kinda watching you all day and constantly going "let me tell you how to do that" or "let me do that for you".
Seems unlikely to me. Not impossible, most things I can think of are theoretically possible. Just unlikely. And if you think even just _one_ of those three aspects can't be fully automated in the near future, there's still plenty of opportunity left to differentiate in that area.
I think generative AI does unlock a new generation of startups, because it's genuinely new technologies that we can find at least some valuable use cases for. And an army of startups tends to be better at quickly exploring a new solution space than a few big incumbents. So in that sense, it is similar to smartphones, which also brought a new solution space, and with it, startups.
- bryanrasmussen 2y agothe problem for me with AI startup, built on someone else's AI, is that it is difficult for me to envision what the moat will be - perhaps because it is difficult to think up what the moat will be for something so generically specified, but really whenever I think of something cool, it seems AI is an added on ability but not the main driver, and that AI does not give any moat whatsoever.
- fhd2 2y agoI agree, it's an implementation detail. What you sell is a solution, and your mode is generally your brand, your existing user base, and any anti competitive shenanigans you manage to get away with. Not so much even the actual quality of the product, it's more important what people _think_ it's quality is.
- inferiorhuman 2y agoIt's trustworthy. In what way is AI trustworthy? It's ruining the parts of the internet I use and care about. I can't visit Digikey's site in an incognito tab without having to sit through a ~5 second captcha these days. Mouser is less aggressive, but it's still problematic. Drew's spent how much time combating AI bots instead of improving Sourcehut? In fact I'd be hard pressed to think of a site that isn't getting boned by AI.
- fhd2 2y agoWell, I meant it in the sense of: You use a tool because you think it's creators really know this space and you can rely on it. To stick to the DropBox example, their users probably trust them to keep file management convenient for them and to keep their files safe. I've seen a depressing amount of people treat LLMs like some sort of oracle. So I can picture a significant number of consumers just trusting ChatGPT with their taxes or whatever, based on the assumption that it know any domain at least as good as human experts. I'm not saying _I_ find any LLM trustworthy. But if enough people do, it becomes difficult to differentiate there.