When I was 23, I watched fortunes get minted in the App Store gold rush in Silicon Valley because a handful of founders locked themselves in a room, ignored every shiny distraction, and got absurdly good at one thing...ranking on a brand-new leaderboard.
Same playbook today, except the leaderboard updates every sunrise. A new model, a fresh agent, an API nobody saw coming drops daily, and it’s easy to drown in release notes. Treat that overwhelm as proof you’re early. The only way out is to learn and ship your ideas at the same time.
Pick a single wedge in the AI stack, go six inches wide and a mile deep, and treat every experiment like a speed-run. Run 30-day cycles: build a micro-agent, thread it through the FYP, measure the spike, double down on what hits, kill everything else. Learn the tools, models, and workflows while you’re shipping...become an experimentation machine that levels up mid-sprint.
Keep score in happy customers, not VCs reaching out.
Energy matters while the window is cracked open, but focus compounds when it closes. The people who stay rich in the next cycle will be the ones who built distribution and product in the same keystroke, then said “no” 99 times out of 100. Calendar-block four-hour deep-work slabs, stack tiny launches, and let the market whisper which direction to sprint.
I'm here to tell you...
1. In five years we’ll call this chapter obvious. Right now it’s pure arbitrage.
2. Like all arbitrage, this window will close. I raised $2M to build a mobile app in 2018. It was too late. It made it 100x more difficult than launching in 2009.
3. There's a reason why Uber, Instagram and most of the mobile app success stories launched in the early app store era not post-covid.
4. you dont need co-founders or a seed round to get started
5. what you build this weekend could be worth millions by next year. new models + new platforms + new use cases = unlimited surface area for innovation.
6. the people who win aren't waiting for permission. they're shipping products and learning the tools simultaneously, treating each launch as data collection.
7. the window is temporary, but the wealth created during it will be permanent. the next Instagram, Uber, and Airbnb equivalents are being built right now with AI at their core.
8. there is a huge unfair advantage in knowing how to prompt, finding new workflows, seeking out new tools
9. the obvious AI use cases (content creation, coding assistance) are already saturated and extremely VC funded. the non-obvious ones (AI for physical world problems, niche industry applications) are wide open.
10. There is millions of dollars up for grabs just wrapping agents and selling them as work.
11. I will be sharing this stuff for free. i want to see you steal my ideas, my workflows, the tools I use and get absurdly wealthy, quit your 9-5, create happy customers and have fun.
12. THE WORLD IS YOUR OYSTER.
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I've spent the last 24 hours with ChatGPT 4o images, and it's clear we've entered a new reality: "Execution is cheap, ideas are everything."
For decades, we were told the opposite. Everyone had ideas. Few could execute them well. The ability to turn a concept into reality separated the winners from the dreamers.
But in an AI world, it's completely flipped.
When anyone can execute at 90% perfection with the right prompts, the limiting factor becomes the quality of your ideas. The creative direction. The strategic insight. The unique perspective.
The most successful companies I'm seeing are shifting resources from production to ideation. Less time pushing pixels, more time exploring concepts.
They're running 20-30 creative directions where they used to do 2-3, because the cost of trying ideas has collapsed.
In a world where anyone can create a beautiful website, logo, or packaging, the winners are focusing on the things AI can't (yet) simulate:
I think it's authentic relationships, innovative products, and unique perspectives.
The real advantage is in knowing when to break the rules of good design in ways that resonate emotionally.
The human touch is becoming less about execution and more about strategic deviation from the optimized norm.
This is creating strange new dynamics in hiring too. When I started our design agency @meetLCA, we hired for world class technical skills - mastery of tools, execution ability.
But now we care more about hiring for conceptual ability and creative direction. People who consistently generate novel ideas rather than perfect executions. Obviously, top tech skills still matter, but way less.
As AI makes "good enough" design accessible to everyone, the market is splitting. At the low end, good enough is actually good enough.
But at the high end, there's a premium on the truly unexpected - the ideas an AI wouldn't generate because they break conventional patterns.
I think we're heading toward a bifurcated creative world: automated beauty for most purposes, with human creativity focused on creating the unexpected, the ideas and approaches an AI wouldn't think to try because they don't follow established patterns of "good design."
The challenge for most of us now isn't "how do we execute this idea?" but "which ideas are actually worth executing?"
- call 5 potential customers
- partner with industry players
- paid ads to get sense of CAC and get feedback
- confirm pricing makes sense
- ensure technical feasibility
- create content/audience/community
5. bonus points if:
- regulatory/compliance need
- affects big money companies
- simple to build MVP
- customers desperate
yesterday, i stumbled onto the most underrated market research tool.
tiktok creator insights.
it's a goldmine of consumer behavior data, hiding in plain sight. and it's free to use.
here's why it's powerful:
1. shows you what people are desperately searching for 2. highlights topics with high demand but low supply 3. reveals trending questions in every industry 4. tracks search growth over 14-day periods
the "content gap" tab shows you problems people are actively trying to solve, but can't find good solutions for.
so that's cool for a couple reasons
1. help you create content that has low supply/high demand (better chances of going viral) 2. you can build startups to some of these trends
Example:
i searched "email management" and found:
• "how to clear 10k emails"
• "best way to organize work inbox"
• "email templates for busy people"
thousands searching.
hardly any solutions.
the beauty of this
• it's real-time market research
• it's actual user intent
• it's completely free
• and most founders aren't using it
a bunch of smart founders are mining tiktok insights right now
it isn't perfect, but you never know what you might find
your next startup idea might be hiding in those search trends.
So, ill share how to access it because it’s kinda hidden:
1. Go to TT search
2.Type in “creator search insight” 3. Tap view
im one of those people that think using data like this is your unfair advantage.
if tiktok is the new search engine, then tiktok creator insights is the new google trends.
might as well use it.
this is how i use it
i scroll through suggested/trending tap
i see if anything catches my eye
i look to see search data
sometimes ill look for demographic data
i write notes on what i learn
and i see what are related videos
that sparks ideas for me
free ideas galore.
why do i share this stuff even when i probably shouldn't
because i want you to win
i want you to come up with an ad idea that gets you a 5x roas
i want you to turn those shower thoughts into revenue streams
1. Create plugin for Gmail, Outlook 2. Use GPT to generate variant signatures, track performance 3. Charge $29/month for "Signature Optimizer Pro" 4. Scale to full email copywriting assistant
#2 Micro-SaaS for Airbnb hosts
1. Create AI tool to optimize listing titles and descriptions 2. Add feature to auto-respond to common guest inquiries 3. Charge $99/month for "SuperHost Autopilot" 4. Expand to pricing optimization, review management
#3 Micro-influencer content arbitrage
1. Build tool to identify trending TikToks in foreign languages 2. Use AI to translate and localize for English-speaking market 3. Charge creators $199/month for "Global Trend Surfing" 4. Expand to cross-platform content arbitrage