What I'd Tell Every Designer Before They Enter the AI Startup World
I’ve hired designers, contracted them, and worked alongside them as a co-founder building AI startups.
Building to exit is a strategy, not an accident. Alex Cheng, VC and founder of Zenith Venture Studio, writes the playbook for founders building vertical B2B AI startups worth funding — and worth acquiring.
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I’ve hired designers, contracted them, and worked alongside them as a co-founder building AI startups.
Everyone is building AI startups. A quiet group of solo builders is actually shipping them — in weeks, with no investors, no team, and no permission.
One of the biggest frustrations I hear from investors today doesn’t come from startup founders — it comes from LPs in venture capital funds. Capital has been committed for years, valuations have gone up and down on paper, yet real liquidity remains elusive. Distributions are slow, exits are rare, and timelines keep stretching.
For decades, angel investors were told to think like venture capitalists.
A quiet shift is happening in the startup ecosystem.
Most angel investors still look for the same old “moats”: data, IP, defensibility, network effects.
One of the biggest sources of tension in early-stage investing comes from a simple truth: founders and angels often want different things.
In early-stage investing, momentum is everything.
One of the biggest shifts happening in early-stage B2B AI is the idea that startups should be able to sell before they build.
One of the biggest misconceptions in angel investing is that success requires patience — the kind of patience that ties up capital for eight to ten years while waiting for a unicorn outcome.