Lots of founders are crashing out A year ago AI felt like an incredible opportunity. Most of us were able to ship faster, remove admin, and get time back. Lots of engineering founders were even able to explore marketing for the first time: SEO, organic social, outbound. Building complex systems that felt extremely productive. But since then, a lot has happened. Here’s some of the themes I’m seeing: AI marketing isn’t working. At first it feels impressive and it looks good but for most it’s not driving results. This is made worse by the fact everyone has access to the same tools. Inboxes are flooded, buyers are fatigued, the economy is flat. Engineers are fried. Yes you can ship more but for many the flow state has gone. It’s a new way of working and it’s not for everyone. The speed leaves many of us exhausted before 11am. There’s a feeling of what’s the point? Is my product’s next feature going to be redundant in a year, or a month? Can’t AI do what my business does, better? SaaS valuations have collapsed. From 3-4x revenue to 1x. There’s a sinking realisation that a large number of SaaS companies will go to 0 in the next few years. Building to exit seems almost crazy right now. There’s far fewer buyers and far more sellers. These include vibe coders cloning products without the care or craft, contributing to the distribution challenges from people doing it the right way. Lots of people are trying to make money by selling shovels. This just adds to the frenzied energy. Build in public stopped being fun. A few makers realised that the new game is attention, and now everything feels insincere and stunt-driven. They are influencers not founders. Changes to the X timeline compounded the issues. There are exceptions and there are still moats remaining, but the challenges feel existential