Make Them Come First. Then Build It.
In the Age of AI, Code Is Cheap. Attention Is Not.
The old startup gospel was “build it, and they will come.”
That was always wrong. But now? In the age of AI? It might be startup-failing advice.
I see it constantly. Brilliant founders, heads down, shipping features into the void. Iterating on UI no one has seen. Debating architecture for a product with two users. Building, building, building — convinced that the right product, polished enough, will eventually find its people.
It won’t.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth about startups: building a good product is hard. Finding people who love it is harder. And yet, founders split their time as if the first problem is the only one worth solving.
It isn’t.
My framework is simple, and I’ll defend it anywhere: put 80% of your energy into finding the people who will love what you’re building. Put 20% into the build.
Not forever. Just at the start — when nothing is proven and every week of silence is a week of drift.
Why? Because the moment you find even 100 people who genuinely love what you’re building, the product roadmap writes itself. Your customers tell you what to build. Your energy goes where it should. Everything sharpens. Before that moment? You’re guessing in the dark and calling it conviction.
Now add AI to this.
We are entering an era in which building is becoming cheaper. You can spin up a website in an hour. Full applications in a day. In a few years — maybe sooner — the most technically complex software in the world will be within reach of a single focused person with the right tools.
If that’s true, then the build is no longer the moat.
The code is not the asset. The customer relationship is. The trust is. The resonance is.
The smartest start-ups I’ve watched recently aren’t marketing their product — they’re marketing the problem. They’re building an audience of people who feel the pain deeply before a single line of code is shown to them. They’re releasing to tiny cohorts. They’re creating believers, not just users. And they’re doing it with a team that’s heavy on storytellers, brand thinkers, and community builders — not just engineers.
That is the shift.
The new moat isn’t your product. It’s that people trust you to solve the problem.
And trust isn’t built by shipping more features. It’s built by showing up, naming the problem clearly, and making people feel like you know how to solve it before asking them to buy anything.
So if you’re a founder right now — especially one riding the wave of AI-powered building — stop and ask yourself honestly:
How much of my week was spent building? And how much was spent finding people who would actually care?
Build it, and they will come is long dead. Make them come. Then build it.