Startups Used to Build First. Now They Pitch First and It’s Slowing Everything Down

The rise of idea-first startups, a shrinking developer pool, and over reliance on AI are reshaping the early-stage ecosystem and not for the better.

alt text Midjourney: a lady and gentleman sat at a desk planning a startup project together.

In the early days of Silicon Valley, founders didn’t start with pitch decks. They started with prototypes.

Jobs and Wozniak didn’t wait for VC interest before hacking together the Apple I. Zuckerberg built Facebook before anyone invested a cent, Peter Theil invested afterwards. The Google search engine ran off a Stanford server long before a dollar of outside capital hit their bank account.

They built first — then proved value.

Today, that order has flipped. The default mode of the startup world is now idea → pitch → raise → scramble to execute. Right now, developer talent is stretched thin and generative AI is the new crutch, the consequences are rippling across the entire innovation landscape.

Startups Have Become PowerPoint Factories

Many early-stage founders now begin with branding, a Notion board, and a dream. They lean into pitch polish and storytelling, assuming they’ll figure out “execution” once they land a pre-seed check. Product becomes a post-money activity rather than the source of traction that secures funding.

But this idea-first model is hitting a wall. Building something useful still takes time, iteration, and often a level of engineering precision that AI tools simply can’t replace. Building a SaaS product has become easy but anything beyond that is going to take talent and it’s in short supply.

And don’t get me wrong, this is not a new phenomenon, I was blogging about this over ten years ago. Little has changed.

Builders Are Scarce — and It’s a Bottleneck

There’s a global shortage of experienced developers. Hiring is slow. Compensation is high. And the most capable engineers aren’t chasing fuzzy startup visions — they’re working at stable, scaled companies with clear missions, possibly generous stock options and increased job security.

That means many non-technical founders delay product progress until they can afford help — or they try to bypass the gap with generative AI tools. Which leads to…

AI Helps, But It Doesn’t Close the Loop

There’s no denying that tools like GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT are changing the speed of prototyping. You can go from zero to “something” quickly.

But that “something” isn’t ready for customers. It’s scaffolding. A facade. It doesn’t think in systems, secure APIs, or optimise database access patterns. And worse, it can make founders feel like they’re further along than they really are.

Full disclaimer, I use them. They’re incredibly handy at getting the boiler plate code ready quickly. For algorithmic design I still use the AI tools but am a lot more careful about the testing, logic and debugging, that can’t be left to AI chance when money is on the line (and, it’s my money).

Without a developer in the loop, generative AI is a demo machine — not a shipping engine.

The Ripple Effect: What Happens When Founders Don’t Build

Slower Product Cycles

You burn capital before real feedback loops are established. Development gets bottlenecked. And iteration suffers because the founder isn’t close to the build process.

I’ve seen so many good ideas and ventures fade away into nothing because of this. And in many of my advisory meetings my first question has been, “so where’s the product?”.

VCs Get Burned — and Pull Back

Investors who fund “vision” without “version 0.1” are increasingly left holding empty bags. Missed milestones, vapour ware, and indefinite “build phases” have led to mounting skepticism. VC and PE deployment is declining — because the returns aren’t matching the hype.

The Market Corrects

Valuations are resetting. Funds are shrinking. LPs are asking harder questions. And the founder who can’t ship a product — or at least lead the build is losing strategic ground.

The market correction has been hiding in plain sight for years, it was just too easy to get stupid valuations based on very little evidence of a product, a market or anything else remotely sane. Once the interest rates hit that was the end of the show. And to this day I’m astounded by how many founders don’t know what the risk free rate actually means.

The New Playbook (Actually, the Old One)

The founder who can build, or who brings a builder in from day one, wins.

They don’t have to raise $1M to get started. They can ship faster. Learn faster. And iterate without waiting for a budget approval or a dev hire. When investors meet these founders, the conversation shifts from “What will you build?” to “What can we help you scale?”

We’re Going Back to Fundamentals

In a cooling market, fundamentals matter again:

Working product beats working pitch.
Builders are more valuable than operators at day zero.
Traction talks louder than vision.
Builders need to be able to market and sell themselves and their product. Without the full mix it will fail, something I’ve encountered over and over again with my ventures. The main difference for myself, I never took anyone elses money.

So here’s the takeaway: If you’re a founder with a great idea, find your builder — or be your builder. Use AI to speed things up, not to replace the engineering mindset entirely. Because eventually, someone has to finish the circle. And only a real developer can see the edges.

If you don’t know any developers then it’s time to turn up at the local meetups and make some new friends, and trust me, a lot of them would want to help.

Build first. The money follows.

References: Northern Ireland’s Tech CoFo Conundrum (#Startups) https://dataissexy.wordpress.com/2014/11/20/northern-irelands-tech-cofo-conundrum-startups

The Reality Check for NI Startups : #northernireland #code #startups #nocode #fdi #outsourcing https://dataissexy.wordpress.com/2021/11/06/the-reality-check-for-ni-startups-northernireland-code-startups-nocode-fdi-outsourcing/