The 'Build a New Product' Dream Is Mostly Dead — For Now

I hate to say it, but I think the "build a new product" dream is mostly dead - for now.

It sucks because it has been my personal dream for a long time, and I've had multiple ideas for products to bootstrap over 20 years that I personally never got past the launch pad when the dream was very much alive. Shoulda coulda woulda.

Now, I can easily build something launchable - it's an amazing feeling. There's two main problems:

1. Going to market is harder than it's ever been. It's incredibly difficult for someone at first glance to tell the difference between something with real thought, sweat and time put into it vs. vibe coded garbage that doesn't work - and getting people to take that risk with their time and money. You need a human angle somewhere and a channel that's really working - the ones that worked for years aren't.

2. I am not feeling the pull from the market for new products for the most part, I am feeling the pull from people who want a human being to help them through the transition we're all living right now.

That's not to say that I don't think new software products can succeed right now - especially if they're taking on a barely tolerated incumbent. Just know the investment thesis for that is radically different than it was 3 years ago.

But I think the best path for a lot of people who have wanted to build products is in figuring out how to get paid by helping businesses navigate this transition. New products might come out of that, but the motion is services delivery. That's what I'm betting on.

Also, getting a job inside a non tech company is I think going to be an increasingly viable option for people who traditionally worked for tech companies. If what a company does is driven by mostly activity in the real world, they need a different workforce mix to capture the incredible opportunity AI is giving them. I don't think it's going to be fully vendor driven like the SaaS boom was.

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