Real founder insights about surviving the AI commoditization era
Published October 3, 2025 • Based on Founder Reality Episode 25
Also available on: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • YouTube
I tweeted something this week that got a lot of reactions: "AI will copy your MVP in three weeks. This is why I never build single product companies anymore. Revenue diversification beats revenue projection."
Let me expand on this, because it's more important than most founders realize.
And honestly, three weeks is being generous.
The New Reality of Building Software
With AI tools like Claude 3.5 Sonnet (which just dropped this week), an experienced developer with market understanding can rebuild 80% of most products in days, not months.
Let me give you real examples:
- Intercom - Been around 10+ years with complex features. Someone with AI could copy 80% of their functionality in about three weeks.
- Carta - Cap table management in a niche space charging exorbitant prices. An experienced developer could probably build their core features in a few days.
- SimpleDirect Financing - My own company that I spent four years building. If someone understands the space and business model, they could build our MVP in 2-3 days.
That's the new realm of possibility we're living in.
Watch What's Already Being Copied
Cursor went from niche AI coding tool to $100M ARR. Now they have dozens of competitors:
- GitHub Copilot (Microsoft's monopoly play)
- Windsurf
- Devin
- Claude Code
- And counting...
It hasn't even been a year since Cursor launched.
Perplexity launched their answer engine in December 2022. Then everyone copied them:
- ChatGPT added GPT search
- Claude added search
- Google went aggressive with AI overview and AI mode
- Gemini added search features
Now Perplexity is struggling, expanding into browsers and other products, charging $200/month on their max plan just to survive.
Will Cursor survive? Probably, because they were first and they've built a platform with a generous free tier. But the moat isn't in the product anymore - it's in everything else.
Why SimpleDirect Is Pivoting
We launched SimpleDirect Financing initially. Nobody's copying us yet, but you never say never. Tomorrow someone could come in, copy our exact product, underprice us, and tell us to screw off.
Anyone is at risk. To-do list apps, calendar apps, video editing tools - anything you're building can potentially be commoditized in a single week.
That's why we're pivoting from a single product company to a multi-product ecosystem:
- SimpleDirect ChangeLog - Public-facing changelog (launching soon, completely free to build goodwill)
- SimpleDirect Chat - Private AI enterprise collaboration app
- SimpleDirect Post - Social media posting with AI insights
- And more in development
In a year or two, when you look back at SimpleDirect, we'll be 100% different. We went from single product to multiple products.
As CEO, I believe this is the only way to survive long-term over 5, 10, 15 years.
The Pushback I'm Expecting
This completely challenges startup conventional wisdom:
Paul Graham and Y Combinator say: "Do one thing extremely well"
Peter Thiel's Zero to One says: "Build a monopoly with defensible moats"
Every accelerator application asks: "What is your competitive advantage? What is your moat?"
These questions worked perfectly when building a product took 12-18 months. You had time to establish market position, build brand, get users, leverage first-mover advantage.
Amazon Web Services is a perfect example. They got such a headstart that it took Google five years to enter the market, and Microsoft even longer.
But AI has changed the entire game.
The Defensive Moat Theater Is Over
I don't believe in the word "defensive moat" anymore for most products.
People talk about:
- Proprietary data
- Network effects
- Brand loyalty
All of these assume competitors need months or years to catch up. That's no longer true. They just need 1-3 weeks and access to Claude or ChatGPT to build something really good.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet just demonstrated it could recreate 80% of the Claude.ai interface in one session. If you've tried building something similar, you know how difficult that is.
The Sovereign Ecosystem Model
Here's the new defensive strategy: When your product gets copied, your ecosystem and relationships don't.
One revenue stream = fragile. Three to four revenue streams = anti-fragile.
Even if one or two things don't work out, you still have remaining revenue streams making you money.
How Stripe Does It
Stripe understands that anybody can do payments. Square does payments. Multiple European companies do payments. Payments are commoditized.
But Stripe didn't waste time defending payments. They built an ecosystem:
- Stripe Billing - Robust subscription management (I personally use this)
- Stripe Connect - Marketplace payments that allow instant payouts
- Treasury products
- Fraud management
- Stripe Tax - Platform tax solutions
This isn't scope creep. It's a survival strategy.
Their moat isn't in payments anymore. Their moat is in the switching cost across multiple products in their ecosystem.
Think about it: How hard is it to turn off Stripe and switch to someone else when you're using Stripe Tax, Stripe Connect, Stripe Billing, and Stripe Payments? It's basically impossible, and they know it.
The Only Moat That Matters Now
The moat is customer switching cost across multiple products in your ecosystem.
Each product you add gives you something transferable:
- Customer relationships deepen
- Even if customers only use 2 out of your 10 products, that's still a competitive defensive moat
- You're not defending features - you're building for the next decades
- You're not playing defensively - you're being aggressive
This is one of the only models that can survive the AI commoditization era.
What Naval Said About Making
Naval tweeted something recently that hit me differently: "The purest reason to make something is not to make money. It is not even to make the thing. It's to have the experience of making."
This hits at something most founders miss: The experience of building is the only infinite gain.
I've spent four years building SimpleDirect Financing. I really enjoy the process - having an idea, validating it, talking to designers, getting wireframes, working with developers. Every week is an iterable version better than the last.
After all these years, we're sunsetting SimpleDirect Financing (as mentioned in last week's episode). But I'm not incredibly sad about it because I learned how to make a product. That knowledge is infinitely transferable.
When I launch SimpleDirect ChangeLog, I'm making something new with everything I've learned. That's the beauty of the process.
Joy of Making = Your Competitive Advantage
If you don't love the process of building, you're not going to succeed. Someone who actually loves it will do it much better than you.
This becomes even more true with AI. When anyone can copy your product in three weeks, your only defense is that you can make three more products in three months because:
- You've done this before in this domain
- You can add more features faster
- You know your customers intimately
- You love what you're doing
Even before AI, Airbnb had a major European competitor that copied everything they did. But Airbnb won because they had the experience, the love for the product, the customer understanding.
Speed Comes From Experience
I can beat a fresh-out-of-college programmer not because I'm better at coding, but because I know how to build products that people love, not just products that work.
That comes from the joy and experience of making:
- Each product in your ecosystem teaches you something new
- Learning compounds across all products
- Brand compounds across all products
- You save 40% of your time launching under one brand vs five different websites
You're not defending features - you're expanding capabilities.
Products Need Soul
Peter Thiel said something that stuck with me: A company that's screwed up when they start can never be fixed in the future.
Products need soul. They need mission. They need heart.
If I really love my products and pour everything into them, and communicate that love to customers, versus someone who just copies us to make money - customers can tell the difference in the details.
The Weekend Audit: Three Questions
Be honest about where you stand:
Question 1: Could someone with decent market understanding rebuild 80% of your product functionality using AI tools in three weeks or three months?
Question 2: What is your next product? (If your answer is blank, your competitive moat is fragile)
Question 3: What did building your current product teach you that transfers to other products?
How to read your answers:
- Yes to Q1, blank on Q2: You have a countdown timer. This is a warning bell.
- Yes to Q1, specific answer on Q2: You're thinking ecosystem building. Good. Keep your moat in your main product while launching adjacent products.
- No to Q1: You're either lying to yourself or you found actual magic. Audit that answer very hard.
The New Question
This year's question shouldn't be: "How do I defend this product from copycats?"
This year's question should be: "How do I become the kind of founder who can make three more adjacent products in this domain and build an ecosystem?"
Because the experience of making, domain expertise, customer understanding, and speed of iteration - that's your only moat left.
Everything else is theater.
What AI Cannot Copy
AI cannot copy:
- Your years of customer conversations
- Your customer emails and support tickets
- Your regulatory navigation
- Your partners and business development relationships
- Your distribution integrations
- Your accumulated domain expertise
People can only see the surface - the interface. They cannot see the accumulated experience that lets you build:
- Product 2 in three months
- Product 3 in six weeks
- Product 4 in two weeks (yes, this is possible)
Those speed differentials compound. You take the most time now, but as you go, you take shorter amounts of time to build adjacent features, products, and experiences.
The Ecosystem Founder Advantage
Ecosystem founders optimize for infinite creation. They're the founders you don't want to compete against.
They have:
- Freedom
- Control
- Decades of compounding
- Multiple revenue streams that make them anti-fragile
Even if they take VC money or exit eventually, their moat is significantly stronger.
The Bottom Line
AI will copy your MVP in three weeks. Maybe less.
Your defensive moat in features is theater. Your only real moat is becoming the kind of founder who can build three more products in the same domain before your competitor finishes copying your first one.
Build for the experience of making. Build an ecosystem. Build speed through expertise.
That's how you survive the AI era.
Take the weekend audit - answer the three questions honestly. Then email me at george@founderreality.com or tweet @TheGeorgePu with your thoughts.
New episodes of Founder Reality drop Monday/Wednesday/Friday at 9am EST.
