Lessons from Sachin Jaiswal: AI, startups, failures, and success

All good things come in 3s. Including in-depth industry reports about the impact of AI in the startup community! IT'S LIVE! Part 3 of HubSpot For Startups's "State of AI in Startup GTM" report just premiered, and it has a peek at the future. 👀 We surveyed 500+ founders to understand where the ecosystem is heading. Some of what we learned: → Customer expectations shifted from "accurate outputs" to genuinely insightful answers → AI-heavy startups (28%) and teams under 10 (22%) prioritize predictive analytics and lead scoring → Startups between $5M-$20M ARR (31%) focus on competitive intelligence and market research. 📺 This report also includes a bonus: our full panel of VCs discussing the future of AI from our AiSummit earlier this year. A few highlights from that panel: “If startups aren’t using AI tools or agents, we’re less inclined to invest.” Adina Tecklu, Partner, Khosla Ventures “With AI, you see companies scaling to $60M in ARR with 30 employees. The revenue per headcount is very high. If you can keep teams very lean, you have a better shot of being nimble.” Cathy Gao, Partner, Sapphire Ventures “As a VC, you have two entrepreneur types. One is the repeat founder. Then, there’s the first-time founder, who hasn’t experienced the ups and downs of the startup world. Today, not having done things a certain way and having a learning-first mindset, is valuable. Anyone can really do it. It’s democratized startups to a degree that’s never existed before. It’s very confusing for VCs.” Priya Saiprasad, Co-founder and GP, Touring Capital Dive into Part 3, then jump over and read Parts 1 and 2 if you haven't already. And be sure to bookmark these babies! Read the report here: https://hubs.la/Q03LwJzf0

Time is money. The most crucial part of building a product is talking to potential customers. Understanding what they need. And more importantly, what problem you're actually solving. The only way to find common ground is by getting them on a call, listening, and answering those questions for yourself. But that's easier said than done. Outreach can be warm, but more often, it's cold. And the process of cold outreach has been… interesting, to say the least. One of the more interesting responses I've gotten so far: "Sure, I'd be happy to jump on a call." Sends a Calendly link - 1:1 chat at the discounted cost of ₹9,000. At first, I was speechless. Who charges for a feedback call, right? But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Everyone's time is their most valuable asset. Attention has become currency. When you're building something new, you're not just pitching an idea, you're asking people to invest their time in something that doesn't fully exist yet. That's the hard part. You'll send a hundred messages, get ten replies, and maybe one real conversation. But that one conversation can reshape how you think, rebuild your assumptions, and sometimes completely change your roadmap. So now, when someone says "sure, but here's my Calendly, ₹9,000 for 30 minutes," I don't get annoyed anymore. I just think: everyone's building startups, but some people already figured out how to make money from other people building startups. #startup #entrepreneur #ai #aiagents #artificialintelligence #ethicalAI #AIgovernance

What if the fastest way to build a billion-dollar startup… is to go slow? Aspiring founders, here’s a story that breaks every Silicon Valley rule. Most startups follow the same script: raise VC money, blitz-scale, and hope growth outruns burn. But Edwin Chen, founder of Surge AI, chose a different path: • Bootstrapped with his own savings (no VC safety net). • Built a billion-dollar revenue company with just 250 employees. • Paid annotators 10x industry rates to ensure data quality. • Landed Google, Airbnb, and Twitch as clients—without a sales team. • At 37, became the youngest member of the Forbes 400, with a net worth of $18B. His “Secret Sauces” for Extraordinary Success 1. Cash Flow > Capital He refused VC money, forcing the business to be profitable from day one. Freedom came from cash flow, not fundraising. 2. Quality as the Moat Instead of chasing scale, he obsessed over data quality. Surge pays annotators $20–$40/hour (vs. pennies elsewhere), including professors and domain experts. 3. Radical Focus With no marketing or sales team, he relied on credibility built from years of blogging and technical work. His first clients came through trust, not ads. 4. Contrarian Patience While others sprinted, he played the long game. He even experimented with polyphasic sleep in his youth—an early sign of his relentless pursuit of time and focus. 5. Human + AI Collaboration He believes the future isn’t AI replacing humans, but AI guided by human judgment. Surge’s mission is to encode human nuance into machine learning. 6. Stealth & Discipline Surge operates partly through affiliates like DataAnnotation Tech, keeping operations lean, opaque, and laser-focused on execution. Lesson for founders: Sometimes the most disruptive move is to reject the script. Slow, precise, and quality-obsessed can outcompete fast and flashy. In a world chasing speed and hype, Chen proves that “slow and steady” can still win—if you’re solving the right problem, the right way. Ref: How A Google Alum Became A Low-Key AI Billionaire And The Youngest Member Of The Forbes 400: https://lnkd.in/ggHFdpZD #ccpn #garyoh #StartupLessons #FounderMindset #Bootstrapping #AI #Entrepreneurship #DataQuality #TechLeadership #ContrarianThinking #Forbes400 #SurgeAI

"𝗔𝗜 𝗙𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗴𝘂𝗲" 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴. 𝗦𝗼 𝘄𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲 𝗮 𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀. Every week, new AI tools are being released, progressively getting better at an exponential rate. Investors are realizing how challenging it is for a SaaS company to build a moat now. Early stage dollars are harder to come by. To be investment-ready, investors want to see that you have optimized your offering. Founders are competing against an exponential amount of new founders because of the lower barrier of entry to entrepreneurship. And this new generation of founders is implementing AI tools to do more with less. DFX is launching a course at the end of October to keep founders current on the most important tools to implement and how to leverage them, so that you can focus on scaling your business efficiently. Sign up for the introductory call October 22nd in the comments to learn more. #AI #founder #entrepreneur #startup #growth #investment

A critical insight from Jesse Witkowski at DFX on the new landscape of competitive advantage. While AI is democratizing software creation, it cannot pour concrete or connect a battery. The biggest challenges of the #EnergyTransition are physical, not digital. Our mission at UnpluxEra is to build the real-world, physical infrastructure that powers the future. Our 'moat' is built with steel, silicon, and a deep understanding of the energy grid-things that can't be replicated with an API call. This is where durable, long-term value will be created. #HardTech #Infrastructure #CleanTech #VentureCapital #AI #Startup #Investment

🚨 Broken belief systems kill startups, not bad ideas. You don't lose because of a subpar product. When your audience loses faith in your motion, you lose. The majority of "growth systems" are nothing more than spam and noise generators masquerading as strategies. However, the true currency is trust. Not because they shouted louder, but rather because they created trust loops that kept people talking even when they weren't present, we at TheBoars have seen founders go from silence to scale. The harsh reality is that authenticity cannot be automated. However, motion that feels real can be engineered. The new game is this one: No tricks. Don't beg for attention. Just steady growth based on steady trust. If you're exhausted from developing Web3, SaaS, or AI Let's talk instead of speculating about how to gain traction. Because momentum, not marketing, is what your idea deserves. Emmanuel Chibuzor Client Acquisition Partner | TheBoars #AI #Startups #Growth #Web3 #SaaS #Traction #Marketing

I’ve realised something about entrepreneurship lately. Everywhere you look, someone’s building a product, a service, a community. Everyone’s creating value in some form. But in this constant execution mode, we often forget what started it all, learning. We get so busy delivering that we stop upgrading ourselves. We skip integrating the new like AI, automation, and smarter tools, thinking we’ll do it later. And when others move ahead, we feel guilty, like we’re lagging behind. But here’s what I’ve come to understand. We’re not in the same race. 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝘄𝗻, 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲. Even if you’ve missed the latest trend or haven’t yet automated your processes, it’s not too late. Learn it now. Implement it now. You’re already ahead because you chose to build, not follow. So here’s to all the creators and founders out there, still learning, still showing up, still building their vision in their own way. 💙 Learn again. Build again. At your own pace. #Entrepreneurship #FoundersJourney #GrowthMindset #AI #Learning #Startups

🛠️ What’s the first thing you do when a startup idea hits you? Most people: ➡️ write it down ➡️ pitch it to a friend ➡️ buy the domain (😅 guilty) But what you should do first: Find out if anyone actually needs it. 🔥 That’s where AI Founder comes in — a tool that gives you early idea validation in under 1 minute. No pitch decks. No MVP. No growth hacker needed. Just run a quick validation — and get: ✅ An AI Score (is there real potential?) ✅ Key insights (real demand, risks, audience) ✅ Suggestions for your next move ✅ A preview of the full market & competitor report 📌 This isn’t a final judgment. It’s a compass. So you know whether you're heading in the right direction. 💸 While others are guessing — you’re already moving. 💬 While others are “building a team” — you’re speaking with evidence. 🎯 Validate → Get insights → Move forward with confidence. Try it here: https://lnkd.in/ev75dckM #founders #startups #validationfirst #earlyvalidation #aifounder #nocode #ideastage #startuplife

Everybody talks about the new norm of going from $0 to $10M ARR in 6 months... otherwise your startup is dead. It sounds magical. Yes, AI is creating new markets almost every week. Yes, new revenue streams appear in categories we didn't think of. But chasing revenue at all costs? Dangerous. With this race, here is what is going to happen, we've seen it already, and history often rhymes. Some founders will fake revenue deliberately and end up like the fintech founder who just got 7 years in jail. Or SBF & co. At least those will probably be on the cover of Forbes by then. Others will fake revenue by "accident". They will consider expansion opportunity as projected revenue and from there call it "annualized revenue", finally put it short as ARR. Startups will build to optimize revenue, which is important and needed, but forget about retention which is harder and could kill a company, by creating a leaky bucket. Other startups will justify to have unsustainable operating margins by explaining that this is baked into their cost of acquisition... but CAC rarely get cheaper when new markets are created, it gets more expensive as more players enter. Even price of tokens dropping might not make all business models profitable. Finally, there is the culture of the company that is very hard to change afterward. Some $ might be toxic. Building a team that is used to quick revenue might not be creating the resilient DNA you need for the long run. One thing is very clear, most companies and people are paying for 2–3 AI tools that all do the same thing but that won’t last. Buyers are going to rationalize their budgets and pick their favorite, churn is going to hit big time and negative margins bite back. You know who wins no matter what? VCs When the music stops, they will be the one still dancing, because for them it makes sense: one win out of a hundred pays for the rest. But founders only get one company. One life. One shot... one opportunity to seize everything they ever wanted in one moment 🎶 Burn 5–7 years on the wrong race and you don’t just lose money, you lose time, energy, health. I’m bullish on AI. I’m trying to build one of these rocket-ships myself. Not sure I would be writing this if I was doing 10x revenue every week. But founders should take care of themselves and their companies. We don't want to build a generation of burn-out founders who are afraid to start their 2nd, 3rd companies. So keep building for the long run, to deliver value to customers and be able to retain them, and yes, avoid jail. PS: this message does not apply to the startups I invested in that are too busy doing 1000% growth MoM to read this 😂

🦄 Let’s be honest—most startups today are chasing Unicorn status without creating real value. The new generation of founders has discovered a shortcut: AI agents and generative products. The pitch? “We’re revolutionary, fully autonomous, agentic, and the next big thing.” The reality? Smoke and mirrors. Founders are using AI buzzwords to raise crores without validating real markets, building products no one truly needs. Investors, you’re feeding this illusion by funding hype over substance, rewarding empty promises while hoping for a massive exit. If your company exists to impress, not solve problems, you’re not an entrepreneur—you’re a speculator. And investors if you’re rewarding that, you’re part of the problem. Real businesses don’t need hype. Real entrepreneurs test ideas, face markets, and create impact. Legacy is built on solving problems, not on inflated spreadsheets. That said, huge respect to the founders and startups who are genuinely solving problems, creating value, and making lives better. You are the ones building legacies, not illusions. If this stings, good. It should. Until hype stops being rewarded and value becomes the currency, the system will keep producing illusions instead of legacies. 💬 Ask yourself: are you building something that truly matters, or just another AI-powered mirage to impress investors? watching this episode really hits the point. Available on SonyLIV. #Startups #AI #GenerativeAI #AIAgents #InvestorReality #FounderMindset #ValueOverHype #ImpactOverIllusion #RespectRealFounders