AI Native Founders
A new generation in our midst
Had good discussions on what we mean by “AI Native Founders” last week at Venture Connect in Raleigh and wanted to share here. Lots has published over the last 20 years on digital natives starting with Marc Prensky’s original article from 2001.
Educators are already starting to introduce a similar concept regarding AI natives, which I can see happening in real-life next to me as my 10-year old daughter asks Siri on her Apple Watch incessantly for quick answers to literally anything, as seamlessly as I would have gone to Google…. (or to be honest, Yahoo! or Ask Jeeves).
Taking this a step further, we are starting to see a category of “AI Native Founders” on venture conference stages — a cohort that includes both founders building AI applications, but also those who are active users and early adopters of AI technologies to build and grow their business.
A few characteristics of AI Native Founders:
Early adopters of AI tools
First bias is whether AI can help/solve
Passionate about speed of development with AI tools offering far more easily accessed foundational/beta code
Skeptical on legacy, AI lagging tools (including many big SaaS platforms)
Advocates of a more efficient support model where AI assistants handle T1 issues and human time and expense is only on custom and complicated issues
Forging a new path with more mature companies at pre-seed
AI Native Founders can be distinguished — to use the same language on Digital Natives — from AI “Immigrant” Founders who had already started a company prior to when ChatGPT flipped the world on its head. These founders are retroactively working to embed AI use cases into their businesses and the most successful have been adopting AI to ease the pain of capital constraints since mid-2021.
(Drafty and open to feedback - and I know these terms are hotly debated by the education community but I think are useful both conceptually and practically).
Prediction: AI Native Founders and *Successful* AI Immigrant Founders will launch companies faster and more efficiently than ever before. On stage at Venture Connect, we saw >5 AI Native Founders who raised small pre-seed rounds and are now way further in developing their products along than their predecessors with the help of AI tools. Some are even starting to consider skipping their “proper” seed round in favor of pre-seed extensions that could take them all the way to their Series A (pros/cons to this — can discuss another time if interesting to folks).
We emphasize in our diligence our conviction that we see AI Native Founders winning the next decade - much like the the wave of “web 2.0” founders swept through the tech industry and capital markets after the GFC.
Thanks for joining us on the Front Porch and as you have ideas or a perspective or see something new and useful, let us know!