Startup Abundance

The traditional startup playbook is being rewritten faster than I imagined, and few founders that I talk to are truly prepared for our new reality. Startup formation is going parabolic, but these entities bear little resemblance to the venture-backed, headcount-heavy organizations that dominated the previous decade. We're entering the era of permeable, networked startups – small, nimble entities leveraging AI, onchain infrastructure, and fractional talent to achieve outsized impact.

Person > People

"Hiring is now a tax on your failure to systematize." The conventional startup growth path – raise capital, add headcount, repeat – is ending. Team size is no longer the primary success metric.

This shift stems from AI workflows fundamentally changing the productivity calculus. What once required specialized teams can increasingly be handled by a single founder with the right stack. Many operations, support, content creation, and sales development roles exist due to friction or lack of imagination – friction that AI tools can eliminate virtually overnight.

B2B startups have pivoted from "ChatGPT but for X" to "X but with an LLM." They've recognized they can't compete with foundation models directly, but can dominate vertical-specific workflows by embedding them.

The Rise of Liquid Talent

Human expertise remains essential, but with individuals now capable of significantly more output, talent increasingly spans multiple organizations. Data shows 47% of startups now employ at least one fractional executive – a statistic that would have signaled weakness five years ago.

Elite talent increasingly refuses single-organization constraints, building portfolio careers where specialized expertise is deployed across multiple projects simultaneously. Examples abound of successful startups operating with zero full-time employees outside of the founders, instead orchestrating networks of specialized contributors with customized equity arrangements aligning incentives.

I think back to what Naval predicted during the COVID years: "The goal is that we are all wealthy and working for ourselves." His vision of technology enabling a world where "robots" – software agents and AI – execute tasks while humans become owners and creative directors is materializing rapidly.

Open Rails

While AI dominates headlines, equally transformative changes are occurring in financial infrastructure. Onchain payment rails and stablecoins are transforming organizations into borderless, permeable networks. Major financial institutions are engaged in a "stablecoin gold rush," seeking more efficient settlement options.

When payments become programmable and friction-free, business models transform fundamentally. Micro-transactions become viable, one example of which is "like to tip" on Farcaster this week. Revenue-sharing can become automatic. Cross-organizational collaboration becomes fluid.

This infrastructure shift enables previously impossible organizational designs. The boundary between "inside" and "outside" a company blurs, with value flowing to its most efficient use without traditional corporate constraints.

Mini Apps: Tomorrow's Blueprint

Mini Apps on open social and financial networks like Farcaster and Base offer a preview of tomorrow's startup ecosystem. These applications frequently gain thousands of users within days – without marketing budgets, growth teams, or venture funding. Their success stems from meeting the moment, instantly discoverable through open networks with built-in distribution.

These apps embody the emerging startup paradigm: extraordinary capital efficiency, leveraged shared infrastructure, instant distribution through existing networks, and design centered on interoperability – value flows between applications in ways impossible within siloed ecosystems.

While critics dismiss these as "tiny projects, not real businesses," I believe they're missing the signal. Mini apps represent the earliest indicators of business formation evolution. Today's weekend project becomes tomorrow's micro startups, evolving into category-defining companies without adopting bloated traditional structures.

Building for Abundance

As software becomes increasingly ephemeral, survival depends less on product and more on network and narrative. We'll see more product studios designed to serve very specific networks and personas.

Products remain crucial, but are becoming more fluid, adaptable, and responsive to rapidly changing conditions. B2B SaaS remains viable but requires acknowledging a harsh reality: solutions might become obsolete within months as AI capabilities advance.

Business moats are shifting from technical complexity to network engagement and narrative resonance. Deep, niche understanding and rapid iteration are survival requirements.

For founders building in this landscape, a few principles emerge:

1. Question every hire. Is this role necessary, or can AI do the job? If not, could a specialized fractional contributor deliver superior results?

2. Build for maximum permeability. Design organizations where value, talent, and ideas flow with minimal friction. The notion of high walls around companies is obsolete.

3. Focus on durable assets. As products become ephemeral, invest in network and narrative. Build community before product, recognizing engaged networks provide both distribution and resilience.

4. Embrace equity fluidity. Move beyond rigid compensation to arrangements reflecting precise value creation. The employee/contractor binary is becoming obsolete.

5. Think in composable building blocks. Tomorrow's successful companies won't be monolithic entities but assemblages of specialized capabilities reconfigurable as circumstances change.

The hotbed for this trend is currently onchain. Builders must master synthesizing AI capabilities, fractional talent, and engaged communities into permeable organizations capable of rapid evolution.

The startup landscape will never be the same.