Back

The next billionaire

Unfiltered and real ... • 6m

Found this interesting perspective on AI by Greg Isenberg: "Fine, I'll say the thing that no-one is saying... There's a bunch of AI companies with $1-10M "ARR" raising big VC money on what I'll call "curiosity revenue" - not real sustainable ARR. Basically, what's happening right now is a lot of people have high willingness to try AI products. They'll sign up for a free trial, maybe even convert to paid for a couple months out of curiosity. This creates a temporary revenue spike that looks like product-market fit but isn't. They call it ARR, but it's more like "hey I'll try this product revenue". Of course there are companies like Replit, Cursor or Bolt that are building real products solving actual workflow problems. These companies have genuine retention and expanding usage. And hey, companies like Bolt had been building for like 6 years prior to adding any AI features. Replit has a similar story I think. But many AI startups are riding a wave of novelty and FOMO, not solving real problems. They're showing investors nice growth curves that will flatten in 6-12 months when customers realize the product isn't actually improving their work. A slick demo reel + stripe payment +novel feature might be good enough to try but may not be enough to be a true ARR type of customer. And then we will see a bunch of zombie AI companies. The people who will get hurt will be the employees who think their stock is worth millions but then the founders go and try to raise more money but try raising money when revenue is down 65%. The real tell is retention. Are people still using the product 6 months in? Are they using it more over time? Or did they try it a few times, got the "wow" moment, and then slowly stopped? By the way, even companies with true PMF are at risk. The AI landscape shifts so rapidly that your PMF can be temporary. Example: we're seeing people switch from ChatGPT Pro at $200/month to Grok/Perplexity Deep Research for free with barely a second thought. Unlike previous tech cycles (mobile, web), where advantages could last years, AI competitive moats are filling in weekly. We're probably 18 months away before we start seeing a bunch of zombie companies. The AI companies that survive will be the ones that focused on solving real problems, iterating as the market changes, building true community and not just demo-ing cool sizzle reel after sizzle reel. Am I wrong?"

5 Replies
1
19
Replies (5)

More like this

Recommendations from Medial

Image Description
Image Description

Harsh Dwivedi

 • 

Medial • 27d

Emergent.sh hit $10M ARR in just 2 months from launch 🚀 Making it one of the fastest growing AI startups in the world. This is founded by ex dunzo founders. What a comeback.

19 Replies
18
40
1
Image Description
Image Description

The next billionaire

Unfiltered and real ... • 7m

Clearest path to a $10M ARR B2B AI agent startup

4 Replies
37
33
Image Description
Image Description

Startup Memer

Jester of Medial • 4m

Google Dropped a whole bunch of Ai Products at once.

3 Replies
1
21

Himanshu Dodani

Start now what you j... • 2d

✨ What if Ramayan met the power of AI? From epic legends to lifelike AI avatars — the future of storytelling is here. 🚀 Would you try creating your own AI Avatar? 👇 -- https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOIxExuDyoZ/?igsh=bHl6MHI2NWwxejlz

Reply
3

Samrat Kesharwani

19 | Founder & CEO @... • 10m

Reply

Ashish Singh

Finding my self 😶‍�... • 4m

OpenAI Eyes Major AI Coding Tool Acquisition! OpenAI is reportedly in talks to acquire Windsurf (formerly Codeium) for a massive $3 billion. This move would pit OpenAI directly against other AI coding assistants like Cursor by Anysphere. Windsurf

See More
Reply
2
12

VCGuy

Believe me, it’s not... • 1y

Google's $23 B offer for Wiz may reignite interest in deals and exits for cybersecurity start-ups. Wiz's $23 B offer from Google is ~2x the valuation of their Series E and 46x their ARR. Series E in May 24 : $1 B raised at $12 B valuation ⏩Invest

See More
Reply
1
8
Image Description
Image Description

TREND talks

History always repea... • 8m

The largest companies by revenue 🚀

3 Replies
2
14
Image Description
Image Description

Aarihant Aaryan

Prev- Founder & CEO ... • 7m

It's a great opportunity if consumer tech companies focus on building their own D2C vertical, given distribution is already cracked At PW, we had our own D2C vertical (selling books) contri 10%+ group revenue Nek Jewellery by Jar is doing 100 cr+

See More
3 Replies
1
8

Download the medial app to read full posts, comements and news.