Explore the risks and rewards of building on OpenAI and debunk the myth that it will make indie startups evaporate. Learn about the debate surrounding building on OpenAI and the impact of customer inertia. Discover the benefits and risks of building a business on top of OpenAI, and how it can give you a competitive edge. Understand the challenges of growing a business and the importance of taking action. Find a solution for founders who might need to sell their business on acquire.com.
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Quick takeaways
Building a business solely reliant on OpenAI can be risky due to lack of control and potential changes in pricing and access restrictions.
Customers are less likely to switch to a more generic implementation when they find a product that reliably solves their specific problem, highlighting the value of focused solutions.
Deep dives
Building a business solely reliant on OpenAI can be risky
One main point from the podcast is that building a business solely reliant on OpenAI can be risky. OpenAI can change their pricing, access restrictions, and interfaces at any time, leading to a lack of control and a severe business risk. This is exemplified by the debate around building businesses on top of OpenAI interfaces, which can make a startup vulnerable to changes in OpenAI's offerings. However, building indie businesses around OpenAI's capabilities and technologies can still be viable if done correctly.
Customer inertia plays a crucial role in the success of indie businesses
The podcast discusses the importance of customer inertia and the specific needs of customers. It emphasizes that when customers find a product that reliably solves their specific problem, they are less likely to switch to a more generic implementation. The example of Damon Chen, the founder of PDF.ai, is mentioned to highlight how customers can still be excited and satisfied even with OpenAI's updates that might threaten certain businesses. This underscores the value of focused solutions that cater to well-understood needs, rather than simply relying on OpenAI's generic platform.
OpenAI's updates can provide leverage and data for indie businesses
The podcast highlights the potential benefits of building businesses that leverage OpenAI's tools. By helping customers with specific problems, indie businesses can generate assets, insights, and relationships that OpenAI cannot provide on its own. These businesses can capture valuable data and insights from their customers' usage, which can then be used to improve their products and gain expertise in their domain. It is suggested that indie hackers should consider OpenAI as a service that adds value and features to their existing offerings, or even make it their core dependency while quickly building additional features that OpenAI might not prioritize.
Should you build an indie business on top of OpenAI? Absolutely. It's not in OpenAI's interest to build niche solutions that compete with indie hacker startups. It's in their interest to enable them.
Today, we dispel a myth about building AI startups.
The community is caught up in a strange back-and-forth between “look at all these amazing opportunities” and “don’t build, OpenAI is just going to make your startup evaporate.” If you’re an indie hacker and you wonder which of these is actually helpful for your journey, I’ll try to help clear things up.