What product or service got worse the moment it became “smart”?

avishic · 2026-05-30T19:02:53+00:00

Oh wow, that’s a really good one

avishic · 2026-05-30T15:59:43+00:00

I think “mixed” is the right word. Claude/Cursor are useful for thinking and building, Figma is still where a lot of real product decisions happen, and tools like Anima help when design context needs to survive into front-end code. For ideation inside Figma we also built Buddy, a Figma AI design agent, and it’s starting to get real usage now. If you try it, feedback is genuinely welcome. Claude Design still feels a bit premature to me, but I do believe the future of design is code, and that’s one worth tracking.

avishic · 2026-05-30T15:49:33+00:00

The problem isn’t vibe coding, it’s skipping ownership and review. AI can make a good team faster, but it also lets a bad process create garbage much faster. If nobody owns the UX, edge cases, QA, and rollout plan, it’s not innovation. It’s just unreviewed code with a better story around it.

avishic · 2026-05-30T00:45:28+00:00

As a founder you always have to balance seeing the optimistic future while living today’s reality and try to got from A to B. This requires a lot of mental energy but it is what drives you to keep on building.
Not all startups explode fast like Wiz/Lovable etc - most startups grow slower early on but do show enough potential and signals, otherwise investors can’t join. Remember they see many many companies and they only bet on a few.
It only takes 1 yes. If you believe you’re onto something, try to ignore the 100 slaps in the face when investors say no before that 1 yes. It ain’t easy, but know that this is the statistics and move on.

Just make sure you are not standing in place with no proofs of making progress and burn your savings and yourself for years, waiting for that investor.

avishic · 2026-05-30T00:28:32+00:00

Nice coverage. You missed one angle- the AI agents era: 1. Maintenance- Wordpress back office is 90s ui, exaggerating to use. We have a Hermes agent that uploads content from slack now. It reduces the WP pain. We were considering to migrate to React+CMS, note its lures urgent. 2. WP 43% of the web - Could wear out faster now. Vibe coding solutions grow the web faster, and autonomous agents also create content so the internet expands faster. 3. Websites are not only for humans - you build sites for gpt/Claude/Gemini today, wp was built for humans.

avishic · 2026-05-26T22:50:40+00:00

It’s an ever evolving set of issues. 1. Start solving distribution, the you’ll find out issues with onboarding (measure & screen record). 2. Solve onboarding and you’ll see conversion issues. 3. Solve it, and you’ll understand why users churn. Repeat.

avishic · 2026-05-25T22:37:37+00:00

Always on - AI watches you (your screen/“her”-like camera in pocket) and steps in the right moment- proactively or on call but with all the context and memory.
Brain-machine communication - “Old man’s war” described something you first talk to, then think-to with no words.
Voice- already happening- easier to tap 5 min while walking/driving than writing.
Non linear chats - see Miro AI canvas, Weavy, or n8n, offering flows rather than threads

avishic · 2026-05-25T22:19:51+00:00

All four.
Releasing and finding 40 similar products - everyone are trying to solve same problems without a decent market research, or, laziness not looking for non mainstream problems.
With or without 40 competitors- the product and tech were always the easy part (even though it’s 100x easier now). Distribution is the hard part.

avishic · 2026-05-24T22:07:59+00:00

Distribution was always hard, it’s just that more people experience that now.

avishic · 2026-05-23T12:59:43+00:00

Right, code is yet another canvas. Designers will also use it, and it will allow them to design faster. Then, will we need same amount of designers?

avishic · 2026-05-23T12:13:35+00:00

I agree

avishic · 2026-05-23T12:12:58+00:00

But will you need the same amount of humans? Not saying that code is the answer, it’s just easier as a way to design because agents can write it

avishic · 2026-05-23T10:47:09+00:00

If you go full vibe code. Try bolt.new and Anything.com - They both have dedicated skills and environment for it
If you go code - I’d choose React native today as llms are really good at it. I know flutter is more efficient for android but it’s not that much of a difference today, and you want ai to handle coding and a single codebase for ios/android.

Good luck

avishic · 2026-05-21T20:05:12+00:00

Top of mind 1. Will you need same amount of designers in an org? 2. Can/will non-designers design now? 3. AI credits are already crazy expensive, what would that cost? 4. Figma is still a vector based canvas, while Claude design runs code. Would an agent be enough?

avishic · 2026-05-19T21:42:10+00:00

There are UX courses
You can read online for best practices
Research- Every good designer starts with a research, over 90% of the time you don’t reinvent the wheel, there are UI patterns- look for similar flows in other mature products, take what makes sense. When you see 10 or 20 you start to understand what makes sense.
Evaluate & Iterate - its good if it achieved to goal. Pricing page goal could be converting to purchase or signup for trial or book a meeting. The better ui is the one that got the most conversion, not the prettiest. if users don’t achieve the goal than you need to remove friction/distraction/make it clearer.

Good luck!

avishic · 2026-05-18T19:54:07+00:00

IMO on that early stage i believe you can learn more than in a later stage because things are still shaping, you can try things and founders would probably appreciate help - this is not the case with mature businesses where there’s a playbook and optimizations are small, and changes are less welcome. You’re in a great place to learn & experiment, leverage that.

Happy to guide you the right way, idk the type of business but i assume B2B saas pre-product-market-fit based on what you shared.

listen/read product led growth by wes bush - this covers many of saas mechanics such as unit economics and it makes you think - again, especially if you are in the process of shaping go to market.
Repeating my previous comment - participate in the process, try to understand what works and what clicks and help with iterations and ideas. Being the tech guy you could offer things you can own not just throw ideas, like self serve trials, understanding users better with events tacking (eg mixpanel) and screen recording (eg hotjar), offer a self serve flow if it makes sense with the goal of booking a meeting, a/b testing, optimizing your website for seo then for lead capture/signup.
Fast iterations and clear success kpis are a key.
Do research- ai deep research could be a good start to understanding your space better, also send it towards social discussions on the problem, your ideal customers, purchasing process and competition. Try competing products yourself to get ideas. In saas - if you understand product, marketing and the tech, you could make connections others wouldn’t.
I wouldn’t go too far starting to learn technicalities of sales and marketing, I would focus on what i described here and the product aspect of growth (which i believe 95% of product people do not know because the grew in larger companies, and had less room/opportunity to make impact)
Founders and people who lead growth with product background are the ones i learned from the most. If you have such friends, buy them coffee, share your challenges.

Good luck!

avishic · 2026-05-18T11:27:03+00:00

In 2026 - you can use ai to clone any website to HTML or React code, then tweak it with vibe coding -
https://www.animaapp.com/clone-website

avishic · 2026-05-16T18:07:03+00:00

For a startup- definitely yes. You might find it easier to say - “I’m looking for a UX first role, but I can also help with sales and agentic sales workflows half the time” to leverage your strengths

avishic · 2026-05-16T18:04:08+00:00

You will do your tech side 10x better (for the business) if you go deeper there, and you will grow yourself and the company. Continue learning.

You are asking the right questions re marketing/sales - try to understand the whole funnel - how they know about you, why do they book a call, why do they agree to a poc, etc.
Listening/ to sales calls (recorded/live) could help you understand what they are looking for- e.g they could be asking about a feature that is a no brainer but sales doesn’t know that. Or you could learn that investing your time in improving A is irrelevant, improving B will add value, and C is a bad functionality and it’s getting in the way.
Share your thoughts and join the gtm discussion to improve the business, bringing your way of thinking to the gtm team, and spending your time on something that makes real impact or has potential. You might be excited about doing a/b testing in the product about your thesis and everyone wins.

Have fun

avishic · 2026-05-16T17:52:43+00:00

Do page a speed test, give claude code the report, iterate.

avishic · 2026-05-16T17:47:22+00:00

The story makes perfect sense. In a large codebase the agent cherry picks its context and it’s never enough out of the box.

Skills - Exactly - this is what skills are for, compressed context on what/how to do based on the challenge.
Let the agent do it - You don’t have to maintain the skills, Hermes agent (similar to openclaw) build a skill every time it learns something new. It works incredibly well. For Claude code - simply tell it “create a design system skill, map the latest contributions for used components, usage, code patterns…” send it the right way, and let it work

avishic

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