First Signal

There are thousands of apps built by brilliant people that will never get a meeting at a16z. Not because the product is bad. Because there’s no business behind it.

@andrewchen Looking forward to it!

for startups/vcs interested in BOSTON/NEW YORK -- rsvp below for office hours with me and the Tech Week office hours this Wednesday to chat with new hosts about organizing events this year deadline for your new york and boston events are this week. Ton of the a16z speedrun team will be on the ground, attending events, saying hello come say hello! RSVP link below

Claude is becoming so hard to use even on Pro. You shut your computer off at 75% usage for the week and enter in prompt in the morning and you’re at 100% it makes no sense

@BigMarkBrown @jaydoggy22 @shiri_shh I’ve struck a nerve with the pool sales community

@jaydoggy22 @FirstSignal_ @shiri_shh Beat me to it

someone built an OpenClaw agent that SELLS pool installations on autopilot. finds $500k–$1.2M homes without pools renders a pool in their backyard and mails a before/after postcard.

Most fintech and consumer app founders chase broad marketing plays for their first customers. The ones who win start narrower: they find the small group of users already frustrated by the exact problem they're solving, then shape everything around how those users describe it. That raw language becomes sharper positioning and faster sales. No ad spend required — just real conversations

@LogicalBadger @TrendSpider Exactly. Enterprise orgs aren’t going to vibe code themselves off these platforms for years. These companies move much too slow

@TrendSpider Enterprise isn’t simply going to switch from big software platforms overnight. Companies have their entire systems and pipelines built to use these services. Currently ai is being CONNECTED to these services to streamline their use in new ways rather than REPLACE them.

At its cheapest valuation in company history while revenues maintain 20%+ YoY growth... Is $NOW the time?

@Observe_and_See @PresentWitness_ Exactly, these companies were built to sell software. You’d be shocked at how unsophisticated the internal tech stack and processes are

@FirstSignal_ @PresentWitness_ Spot on.. I believe this is correct. Hell most can’t even automate invoices.

Software experts, which would you buy and which would you sell?

@yield_maxxer @sickdotdev Interesting take. I agree from the standpoint of we can only go so far before it doesn’t make sense from a capital standpoint to get marginally better

@FirstSignal_ @sickdotdev also these companies keep throwing money at ai because Sam Altman has made AGI seem like the ultimate trillion dollar industry

AI succeeds → massive job losses AI fails → economy crashes AI is just hype → we wasted a decade which path are we actually on ?

@buildwithshyam Go out and find users that are passionate about your product and leverage what they have to say

Your SaaS has 0 users, What do you fix first? A) UI B) Features C) Landing page D) Talk to users

@bilalzahalan That’s definitely a huge part of it too. Personally I just think they built the wrong features at the wrong times and now it’s too late to course correct.

@FirstSignal_ the mistake wasn't building what nobody wanted. it was assuming existing distribution would carry it anyway. two different problems

Microsoft built an AI product their customers didn’t actually want. Now the entire SaaS world is panicking about “homegrown” replacements and usage-based pricing chaos. Here’s what’s really happening in 2026 — and why most fintech & consumer app founders are overreacting. 🧵

@hasonbeexx @Leo_Traydes Xbox and Pc components are great, sure. But ~80% of revenue is from Azure, M365, Windows and LinkedIn. Personally, not a single one of those strike me as driving a 150% recovery 🤷

@FirstSignal_ @Leo_Traydes theyre only down bc of CAPEX

Is Microsoft 2026s Google? Huge sell off, people say it’s over, they won’t be needed because of AI etc. Then boom, 150%+ return by next year at this time🤣

@_ontologic I’m with you. Companies will go all in on building their own solutions to run their business and need the headcount to build and maintain the new infrastructure

Calling my shot: Everyone is wrong. There will be more developer jobs this time next year than there are now

If you’re a fintech or consumer app founder wrestling with monetization, GTM, or positioning in the AI era… We help you build the business around the product you already shipped. DM us “THREAD” and we’ll jump on a quick call. What part of AI-driven pricing or monetization are you dealing with right now? Drop it below 👇

Bottom line: 
AI by itself is no longer a differentiator. Your product must solve a real, painful problem — and your pricing must reflect the actual outcome you deliver, not just the feature list. Founders who nail this will see higher retention and stronger valuations in the next 6–12 months.