starting a consumer company is basically opting into pain as a lifestyle.
you need this weird, almost contradictory stack which is taste timing, future intuition present execution, & culture fluency product rigor. most ppl have like⊠one of these. maybe two if theyâre lucky.
oh the worst thing is that thereâs no clean feedback loop. ainât no tidy dashboards telling you youâre right. itâs mostly vibes, weak signals, & ridiculously delayed validation if it comes at all (kinda like being in a toxic situationship). youâre effectively betting on something that doesnât fully exist yet, using instincts you canât quite articulate, in a market that will happily ignore you until it suddenly doesnât.
this is one of the most asymmetric games you can play but also one of the least coherent while youâre in it. i think of it as playing a video game in hall of fame difficulty with no tutorial & half the UI missing.
Airbnb CEO
@bchesky says more AI founders should be starting consumer businesses.
"I'm on the board of Y Combinator. 87% of companies are enterprise companies per batch."
"Enterprise is awesome... but the biggest prize is consumer. That is what's going to reach daily life for billions of people."
"Think about all the little parts of daily life that are kind of annoying. Pay attention to whoever's in your life and ask: 'How could their daily life be a little bit easier?'"
From his appearance on the show in January.