The Next Next / Update #3

Time to build!

Happy holidays to all of you! This update will be short (and a day late), as I am in Philly with my wife’s family, but I wanted to keep the weekly streak alive for consistency/accountability’s sake.

Even though it was a slow week with the holidays, I feel like I had kind of a big breakthrough!

It’s been fascinating digging into what’s happening with AI and how it will change the way that technology companies get built. I’ve seen many people talking about how software engineering as a profession is in trouble, how anyone with an idea can build a software product now, etc. etc.. But from my seat, it is still so early in this evolution. You go to one tool for this little part of the process, one tool for that one, one tool for this other one, etc. There seems to be a lot of overlap between which tools do what. And at the end of the day, you still need to lay out clear requirements, help paint the picture adequately of what you are after, make sure the software is robust, the user experience is seamless, etc. And don’t forget about maintaining it!

The landscape is also evolving very quickly. It is hard to keep up with everything, and while there is certainly some benefit to being first to market, I can’t help but feel like it is more important to be right. I have started downloading a bunch of these tools (got ChatGPT pro, started playing around with Cursor, Claude, Perplexity, Replit, Devin, ChatPRD, etc.), and am starting to familiarize myself with them as I am also familiarizing myself with software creation at a level I never have before (shocking, I know, as a longtime software founder!).

The space is changing so quickly, it is a full time job just to try to keep up with it. I find I am starting to long for a tool that can help me stay on top of how things are evolving, people I should talk to, podcasts I should listen to, books I should read, tools I should take advantage of, etc. This is kind of ironic, because this type of tool seems to be exactly the kind that these emerging LLMs, agents etc. can help enable.

So, here is my breakthrough: One way I am going to stay on top of what is happening in the space is to BUILD a tool to help me keep track of what is happening in the space. If done right, it should both give me hands on experience with these emerging tools, but also create a tool that can be valuable to me as my journey continues (increasingly so as I get further along and it gets to know me better). And maybe it can be valuable to others as well!

I am scared because this is far more hands on than I have ever been before. But it seems like, if there was ever a time to do so, now is the time. I am certainly not opposed to getting in an awesome junior utility player to focus on the execution in my wake, but given the way the landscape is evolving, do I need one? I am not sure yet (though I think yes?!), but getting my hands dirty, at least for a time, seems like the next logical step to take.

More to come!

Asks this week:

• people to talk to who are using these tools to build robust software of ongoing value, not just the equivalent of fart apps from the early iOS App Store days

• recommendations for which tech stack I should utilize and how to weigh the trade-offs

• advice on how much to do myself vs partner, and if I partnered, what skillset to focus on

• any other words of wisdom!

Thanks again for being with me on this journey, it means a lot and the accountability I feel is real and powerful. Not to mention the great feedback/suggestions I am getting every time I hit the send button on these updates.

Until next week!

Jason