The greatest time to be a founder

THIS WEEK’S STORY

AI is reshaping the opportunities

AI is cracking everything wide open

I’m overwhelmed by the amount of opportunity right now. AI is reshaping everything and it honestly breaks my brain.

Here’s what I’m seeing:

1. Mobile apps are back. AI is unlocking new use cases and the $935B mobile app market is about to get rebuilt from the ground up.

2. AI as a service is the new SaaS. Wherever humans are doing repetitive work, AI agents will handle 90% of it. TLDR: every service business is about to become software.

3. Pricing models are flipping. We’re shifting from seat-based pricing to outcome-based pricing. This one change alone could unlock $50B+ in new value capture.

4. Micro-niche businesses become viable. The cost to create software has collapsed. That means hyper-specific apps that can spin off $1M in revenue are now possible; ideas that would’ve cost millions to build just a few years ago.

All of these shifts are colliding at once. It feels like every corner of the economy is cracking open for founders.

And the cherry on top: I can’t remember another time when so much was changing, and when it was actually possible to turn the ideas in your head into real products.

It feels like one of the greatest times in history to be a founder.

HEADLINES

Higgsfield launches $50M fund for AI builders

Higgsfield just raised $50M and rolled out Higgsfield Ventures to back founders building AI products.

But it’s not just capital. They’re also giving founders access to:

• High-end engineering and marketing tools

• Product consulting from their team

• Free GPU credits

• Private events and networking

They’re betting on the next wave of AI apps, and want to give builders more than just money.

THIS WEEK’S TIP

The system to build apps with AI

Your app doesn’t need to solve everyone’s problem.

It just needs:
→ A painful niche
→ A killer paywall
→ An addictive loop
→ 100+ reels every month

Everything else is noise.

But how do you actually get started? Here’s the path:

1. Download Cursor
Get the Pro plan for $20. This is your AI-first code editor and will be the core tool you build with.

2. Brainstorm your app with ChatGPT
Open GPT-5 and describe your app idea in extreme detail. Go beyond “an app that does XYZ” and spell out everything:

• UX and UI flow

• Screens and pages

• Color schemes, fonts, layouts

• What happens when a user taps each button

• Database structure

• Tech stack

Then ask GPT to create a prd.md file with all of those details, plus a prompt to configure the initial project.

3. Generate your base project
Go to Bolt.new. Paste in the prompt from your PRD and ask it to spin up a React Native project that runs on both iOS and Android. Bolt sets up all the boilerplate files so you don’t have to waste hours on the basics.

4. Move the code into Cursor
Download the project as a zip, open it in Cursor, and drop in your PRD file. This is now your single source of truth for the build.

5. Start coding with AI
Use Cursor’s Sonnet 4 agent to start building. For every new feature or iteration, open a fresh chat. This keeps the context clean and makes the output way more accurate. Pro tip: this is where most people mess up by keeping everything in one thread.

(Or if you want to skip all of this setup, you can just grab my upcoming mobile app template and be weeks ahead from day one.)

6. Add a paywall
Sign up for Superwall or RevenueCat. Use their platform to design a paywall, then instruct Cursor’s agent to integrate it into your code. This lets you lock the app and charge users a subscription. No monetization = no business.

7. Create a killer onboarding
Design an onboarding sequence that ends with your hard paywall. Users either subscribe or they don’t get in. This is where you filter for serious users and start generating real revenue.

8. Market like crazy
Set up a TikTok account in your niche. Warm it up for a couple of days by engaging with relevant videos. Then start posting organic content about your app. Aim for 100+ reels per month. Volume matters. The more you post, the more the algorithm rewards you, and the faster you’ll see traffic convert into paying users.

9. Repeat

To get you started quicker, I am creating a simple to use mobile app template (called “boilerplate”) that will help you build your app with AI so much faster. If you sign up to the waiting list, you will have a super special price on launch 💪 Join the waiting list here

QUICK HITS

• AI Drug Development Faces Slowdown: $18B invested and 75 drugs in trials, but funding dips as biotech struggles to deliver market-ready compounds.

• CoreWeave Launches Venture Arm: New unit will fund AI startups with both capital and compute access to accelerate innovation.

• OpenAI–Microsoft Near Governance Deal: Talks could give Microsoft ~30% stake in a $170B entity, deepening collaboration and IPO potential.

• Google & Meituan Debut New Models: Google releases EmbeddingGemma for multilingual embeddings; Meituan unveils LongCat-Flash, a 560B-parameter MoE.

• Global AI Regulation Accelerates: UN forms governance panel; EU, UK, China, India, and South Korea roll out new AI rules and frameworks.

And That is all for this week!

See you next Saturday!

Filippo

Filippo Pietrantonio

Find me on X, or Book a 1:1 Call