Picture this: You are an ambitious college student in your dorm. It’s 2:00 AM, and you are frantically typing, convinced that you are working on the next big thing. You haven’t seen anyone for days. Your parents think you are the next Mark Zuckerberg. But in reality, you spend your days prompting on Claude Code and pitching your idea to investors, only to learn that your idea isn’t unique, and a hundred other college students also vibecoded the exact app. Today, anyone can use Claude Code or Cursor to transform an idea into a fully functional prototype in a couple of hours. Coding is no longer a niche skill nerds only know; anyone can create something “impactful.” While it may seem that these tools are flooding the market with “great” startup ideas, the truth is quality has dropped, despite what LinkedIn posts and VCs say. One key metric in the startup world is a company’s move from Seed to Series A funding. This phase is monumental, as it validates a startup’s idea from feasible to scalable. From Carta's cohort study, the median time from Seed to Series A funding was 18 months in 2021, and is now “roughly 28 months.” Not only has the time to Series A taken longer, but “only 15 to 18 percent of seed companies [today] raise a priced Series A within 24 months, nearly half the graduation rate of the 2018 to 2020 cohorts.” It is no coincidence that this timing lined up with the launch of AI coding tools like Cursor, which launched in 2023, and Claude Code in early 2025. Consider Y Combinator (YC). While renowned for backing giants like Airbnb, DoorDash, and Stripe through mentorship and finding, the prestigious accelerator is also suffering a quality issue. Masha Bucher, the CEO of Day One Ventures, is a big investor in YC, with her firm investing in 35 companies from YC in the past couple of years, and scaled back during the pandemic “when she saw the quality of YC’s choice in firms go down.” This also coincides with the shared sentiment that YC’s batches are becoming generic, with it accepting overlapping businesses and so many B2B SaaS startups that seem to be “selling stuff to each other.” The root cause is simple: founders are confusing the ease of building with the necessity of solving. When the biggest technical barriers to shipping software are grueling hours of debugging and learning new languages and architectures, ideas become scarce and heavily scrutinized. This barrier becomes a feasibility filter and forces us to ask a fundamental question before typing any code: Is this problem unique and impactful enough to justify the pain and effort of building this solution? Today, that filter is gone. Although AI has eliminated the cost of writing code and prototyping, it hasn’t eliminated the other core components of a successful startup. Distribution, unit economics, customer retention, investor relations, and other essential parts of building a startup remain; they matter even more today. Spinning up a sleek dashboard with Claude over the weekend may feel like a milestone, but without customers, it’s just bloatware. But zero-barrier coding also presents a bigger challenge: defensibility. Technical moat has never been more vulnerable; when everyone has access to the same tools to build, your “unique” idea suddenly becomes noise in a crowd full of prospective builders and problem solvers. Enterprises can replicate your own product using the same tools, rendering countless thin software wrappers obsolete overnight. We have built a culture and ecosystem where thousands of the best builders are building the same automated meeting note apps with minor tweaks and no defensibility. The path out of this trap is simple: stop building quick software services. If we want the next generation of startups to be impactful and out of a funding slump, we need to stop rewarding AI wrappers and start funding messy ideas that are “moonshots.” VCs should not be spreading their eggs in the same basket of AI wrappers, as it's a zero-sum game. No one wins when everyone builds the same wrapper that can be replaced in one afternoon. Builders should also rethink building as a whole. If you can build an app over a couple of hours, close it and delete it. Instead, shift your focus to messy, ugly environments, like physical robotics, power grids, and hard sciences, where your value proposition doesn’t depend on LLMs alone. Close the terminal, shut down the laptop, and touch some grass. Talk to real people, see what the true pain points are, uncover problems that don’t require a new form of automation to solve, and remember that startups are non-linear. Building is no longer the hard part; finding something that actually matters is.

It’s been a week since the start of fall. The leaves haven’t turned quite yet, but the chilly air has already made its unwelcome entrance, and what better excuse to stay warm than a quick summer recap? Earlier in June, I put together a short list of things I wanted to tackle, and looking back, I’m pretty proud of staying somewhat on track. 1) The State of Startups I spent the bulk of my summer working at a startup focused on Physical AI, and it was honestly quite a memorable and amazing experience. Although I had just closed down my little side "startup," I still got to learn a lot about how a functioning startup operates day-to-day, with the perk of not losing sleep. However, one of the biggest takeaways I had this summer working at a hardware-focused startup, ironically, was that SaaS isn't quite dead. I think SaaS has gotten a bad rep because tools like Claude Code have gotten much more accessible and better. There has been an influx of B2B SaaS startups, and while the number of low-grade startups has increased, the core need for B2B SaaS is still there, if not growing. This influx has increased noise, but working this summer, I valued our SaaS vendors. Although we could've created every tool we needed in-house, and a lot of our tools we use are indeed made in-house, there is a bulk of mission-critical tools that need a team dedicated full-time, and I think that's where SaaS plays such a huge role. I view SaaS tools as almost a team that has been contracted, and while not all tools need to have this level of support, there is still a healthy amount of tools that work better as a SaaS. 2) TrueBlue Travel Sometimes it is nice to leave the office and confine yourself in a flying metal tube. I had a fair share of trips this summer, including flying to Chicago, London, Venice, Milan, and San Fransico, as well as countless weekend road trips. From the deep dish in Chicago, the pub and Hugo Spritzes in London and Lake Como, and YC Startup School in SF, each trip had its own charm and one unfortunate theme: delays. My bad luck with jetBlue continues to haunt me; all but 2 of my flights were on time. One of which was my flight back to Boston from Milan, which got cancelled, and I had the great pleasure of spending an extra night in Europe and then another night in Chicago with my rebooked flight on United. Despite all of that, I am almost to Mosaic, so I have unfortunately gone too deep into the jetBlue ecosystem. 3) Core Workouts I also spent a ton of time at CorePower and [solidcore]. I am still trying to figure out why I love this form of working out so much. The cycle always starts like this: I excitedly book a class, start dreading class as I make my way over, contemplate life during the mid-plank, but then after a quick shower, I'm the happiest man alive. I used to wonder why these fitness studios had borderline cult followings, but somewhere between the dark rooms and the endless pulses, I think I drank the Kool-Aid. Looking back, between shipping code, navigating gate changes, and shaking through 50-minute reformer routines, the summer flew by faster than expected. Fall is officially here, and while the temperatures are dropping, I'm heading into the semester recharged, carrying plenty of lessons, a couple thousand airline miles, and maybe just enough momentum to survive whatever comes next.

This past semester was truly unique, to say the least. My roommates can attest that I was tweaking out almost every day and was nowhere to be found in the dorm for most of the day. However, along with the long list of things I've done and tried out this semester, I also learned a lot about startups and myself. 1) I spent a lot more time reflecting on what I actually want. Throughout the semester, I would reflect at the end of (almost) every day and decide whether or not I was satisfied with my decisions. It could be anything, from whether it was worth getting the taco plate from the dining hall to going out for a networking dinner the night before an exam; I forced myself to judge every aspect of my day. What I noticed was that doing this quick, simple reflection every night, and then trying to see how I can do better the next day, actually improved my overall thoughts of each day. Whether there were actual changes or I have just become complacent with my own decisions, my satisfaction levels throughout the semester grew. I did notice that I became more social, leaving the dorm more often than last semester, and I am honestly happy with that. 2) There is no time better than the present. Sometimes the sporadic text of "come to dinner tn" can be the most powerful thing that changes my day. Over the last couple of semesters, I have forced myself to be on a strict schedule, reserving going out or meeting up with friends on the weekends for the sake of my academics. It is very hard to tell whether this has had a profound impact, given that my grades did drop in a way I was not too pleased with. I did realize that I would procrastinate in my dorm, putting off assignments or tasks until late at night and still going to bed at an ungodly hour. Forcing myself to seize every opportunity that came my way and taking a somewhat unstructured approach to attending these events meant the spontaneous nature of it actually helped me get my work done much more efficiently and expand my view of the world. I call that a win-win. 3) I've learned that I am very risk-averse. Working with my friend on our startup made me realize how risk-averse I am. I think it might stem from the fact that I truly want to ponder through every decision I make, but it can be slow and unnecessary, especially when time is of the essence. I quickly learned from working on the startup that although it is important to flesh out every decision, some things, like putting a couple of bucks down to run an experiment, should be done without thinking, even if the probability of success is so slim. I guess working more and more on my own startup, being in the jump seat for so many decisions, forced me to become risk-averse, and one could argue that a startup is just one expensive experiment. 4) You don't always reap what you sow. You can't magically do everything. Trying to balance academics, research, a startup, athletics, and getting a reasonable amount of sleep seems like an impossible task, and it was. Each week became a round-robin of which of these commitments I had to prioritize, and sometimes it would just be half-assing them all, given how none of them would overlap. I would be frequently frustrated with the results, and I really had no one else but myself to blame. Even doing "trial periods" for each was unreasonable; the level of commitment is dynamic, and influxes for each can all happen at the same time. Although I do have a super-packed semester ahead of me, I will try to make sure that what I do prioritize maintains that priority and truly deprioritizes other activities. Looking ahead: I have a couple of great plans to keep my summer productive yet rejuvenating, despite how uncertain I am about what my day-to-day will look like. 1) Going to Europe with my friends Despite not being able to make it to ICRA, I'll still be making a trip with my friends, trekking around the continent. Besides booking our flights to Europe and setting dates for where we will be, the rest of the trip will be pretty unstructured. Who knows, a midnight bar crawl might be the best or worst idea ever. 2) Spontaneous traveling and dinners Again, randomly driving to the cape with my friends for a weekend or hosting a small dinner party is such a great way to meet people and experience the world in an impromptu way. 3) Doing my own set of robotics and agent experiments that I keep putting off. I have a robot arm that is underutilized and a running joke with my friends about how I want to set up 600 agents to simulate mundane decision-making. No time like the present. 4) Working out more. Right before finals, my friends invited me to do CorePower yoga with them, and I said why not. Although I do sail and have practices twice a week and race over the weekends, I haven't really been able to find a consistent schedule to go to the gym. I know I should go to the gym, and it boosts my productivity throughout the day, but I've always found last-minute meetings or the idea of working alone to be roadblocks. Luckily, one week at CorePower changed my mind about working out, and I am looking forward to going to CorePower every week, and maybe even challenging myself by trying [solidcore]. 5) Get more into cooking I spend a lot of time watching cooking videos, but not in an actual kitchen. Hoping to change that and go on a culinary adventure this summer. Outlook: I think I did a pretty good job this semester, despite the drop in grades, and the uncertainty of what I am doing this summer looms above me. Throughout the semester, I got to meet so many exciting people, have such enlightening conversations about anything and everything, and also took away so much from starting my first-ever startup with my friend. I also learned to let go and prioritize what I felt was right, even if it was tangential to what many people think. I am looking forward to seeing how I can continue with some of these ideas during my super-unstructured summer; hopefully, it will feel just as rewarding as the semester did.

For the past couple of months, I've had the pleasure of connecting with so many people in the venture and startup space. Despite talk of the "bubble," I think this is an exciting and innovative space that revitalizes the energy in tech. Instead of the hottest thing being quirky perks, we're now paying attention to the hundreds of startups crafted every day. For those who know me personally, I am a vocal opposer of the wave of B2B SaaS Agentic AI bullshit startups that seem to pop up in every corner. Do we need thousands of ChatGPT wrappers that fundamentally do the same thing? Absolutely not. It's a waste of capital, and honestly, many of these startups are just short-term wave-riders, whether VCs and Founders realize it or not. Overnight, my $1,000 AWS credit project is suddenly valued at millions for using an API call. However, as much as I oppose B2B SaaS with a burning passion, I firmly believe it is a necessary evil. Realistically, the companies that will be the next Google or Meta are likely to be deep-tech startups. Deep tech "moonshots" are what can forever change our course in science and human advancement—something a ChatGPT wrapper will probably not be able to do. But as much as I support deep tech, it's incredibly hard to succeed in. A significant amount of capital is required for R&D, and the risk is exponentially higher. A wrong experiment can set back years of work; a bug in B2B SaaS might take the business offline for 5 hours. Because the stakes are so high, investors are wary. A common sentiment is that veteran founders have a much higher chance of launching a successful startup than first-time founders. That makes complete sense. Your first startup blowing up is painful, but it's an important learning experience. You take away so much—how to split equity, what makes a "great" co-founder—and these experiences set you up for your next venture. What better way to test the waters and prove yourself than with a low-stakes B2B SaaS? I'm not saying B2B SaaS is trivial, but in the grand scheme of things, it is low-stakes compared to deep tech. It doesn't need that much capital to succeed. A hefty check is nice, but a small one is still enough to fund months of GPT credits, which certainly isn't the same for deep tech. This makes B2B SaaS an enticing way to branch into startups and build the foundations for a deep tech company. As a founder, you work out management kinks in a relatively controlled environment. It's also a quick way to forge bonds with investors. VCs thrive on FOMO. A B2B SaaS from a new founder is enticing—what if they invested early in the next Mark Zuckerberg? But if it fails, it was just a few mistakes. Surely the next venture will be better. And that is your perfect opportunity to start the deep tech startup of your dreams. Now, am I, Tim, saying that startups are easy to create? Absolutely not. I have immense respect for founders and hope to join them on this hellish journey of sharing my ideas with the world. I have a couple of ideas for deep tech startups, and ultimately, I want to start them once I feel grounded. However, before I do that, it might be wise for me to read up on RAG and use Cursor to draft a ChatGPT wrapper in a day.

As much as I should try to align my bedtime towards one that is more natural and human at night, I admit that brushing my teeth at 2:37 AM does give bursts of ideas. During this late-night/early-morning thought chain, I thought about my time efficiency and realized how counterintuitive my life can be. Preface: I am not trying to claim that I am the first one to come to this realization. There are probably millions of others who came to this conclusion before me, but I just happen to be a late arriver. 1) I actually work infinitely better under pressure. As counter-intuitive as it sounds, whenever I tweak out and try to cram my way through, I get an explosion of energy that keeps me focused. It's that desperation to get the task done efficiently that makes me want to do it right the first time. Sometimes, there are pros to doing the paper last minute. 2) I become so encapsulated in my own bubble under pressure that I don't care about what people think. During times of desperation, I become removed from the world. I might just walk around the dining hall with flip-flops in the middle of winter with a t-shirt and rolled-up khakis. I might stare, but it's comfortable. But with any other given moment, I would never do that. And honestly, I want that wacky Tim that doesn't care to slowly seep into everyday life. 3) I can be an overly wishful thinker sometimes. I tend to underestimate how hard the work is, and 50% of the time, I make an accurate assumption. The other 50% of the time, I just push through. Do I learn from it? No. Are the odds worth it? Yes. 4) I need to be more uncomfortable. I realized that being comfortable is my enemy. No, I'm not asking to be traumatized, but sometimes a change in scenery or idea is needed. I realized that when I branch out, I can quickly become comfortable and "settle." That is well reflected in my clothes. I branched out to a new brand 5 years ago, and now I have a carbon clone of sweaters, pants, and t-shirts and have never thought of switching ever since. It's a goal I want to break into this year, and I think this could apply to anything. Whether it is a new niche research project or even a questionable decision, I think jumping into the deep end head first is what I need to grow, but also continuing to push forward and not quickly settle. 5) I need to do better at taking breaks. I have to admit, my life is pretty much dictated by my maze of meetings and side projects. I maybe watch a movie once a month if I'm lucky and maybe binge my favorite show for a bit and then get distracted by a different project. I never seem to be grounded on taking a break, one where I just sit back and unwind. Whether it's a Slack message, an email, or just a random idea, I have never spent a whole week unwinding and feeling super refreshed. With the summer approaching soon, I hope that gives me the perfect amount of time to try and take an actual break for the first time. Conclusion: Do more? Do less? I don't even know. Overall, this tangent of incoherent thoughts has been something that has lingered in my mind for quite some time, but also a good leaping point for me to figure out what my priorities are. With the summer approaching, I will have an ample amount of time to work on stuff I care about. For now, it's time to brush my teeth and rinse and repeat.

3/7/25 - 4:07 AM I've been up for a bit over 20 hours, fueled by my Spotify playlist with Charli XCX and a bunch of microwavable shumai. I didn't intend to stay up this late; all it took was an impulsive thought and a lack of direction. All it took was for me to brush my teeth when I realized I should start blogging and nuke my website for a new one. Lo and behold, I am redesigning my website and writing my first blog post. I make a lot of mistakes but at least when being fueled by impulsive late-night decisions, it doesn't feel that bad or daunting. I am excited to see how this blog evolves, hopefully, there won't be a lot of posts at 4:07 AM.