The greatest gift to startups is when companies like OpenAI, Claude, Google etc. do everything.
Just like AI has context windows, humans do too… and humans will allow a product to do 1-2, maybe 3 jobs for them… max.
The more the large co’s do, the less likely they are to get people to use them for that particular thing.
Humans naturally want products to fit a mental model and a product doing too many things makes it harder for humans to recognize what to use it for, when to use it, and why it’s uniquely valuable.
Clay Christensen’s “jobs to be done” is a good model for this… people don’t adopt products because they’re comprehensive, they hire a product to do a specific job. A tool that’s too generalist weakens the clarity of “the job.”
That opens the window for startups to enter and tell the user to use their product for XYZ painful thing. It focuses product design, marketing, and resources.
When investors ask me “what if Google does this?” My favorite response is… “they’re a public company, you can buy their stock. Why are you talking to me?” Google and every major lab can do anything… literally. And I hope they do because it’s a losing playbook.
Paperwork is better when you can just talk through it.
With Images in ChatGPT and voice mode, you can upload a form, say what to fill in, and get back a completed version.