It’s a good time to be a software founder

Last week, on a plane ride back to Charlotte from the West Coast, I had a two hour conversation with ChatGPT-5. It was a remarkable collaboration and brainstorming discussion.

It’s clear that AI will be an incredible tool, and neural network technology could be the most significant invention in our lifetimes.

At CreativeCo, we’ve spent the last 5 years building out a 40+ company in early-stage vertically-focused software businesses. As we operate here in 2025, we believe it’s an incredible time to be a founder of this type of business— the best time since the late ‘90’s when software moved onto the Internet.

Architectural shift

Similar to the transition of software from on-prem client-server to web-based and multi-tenant in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, the current AI architectural shift will leave legacy solutions behind.

Any vertical market

It’s our opinion that every legacy software system that has a significant market share of a particular vertical should be targeted for replacement by a startup that is building a true AI-centric solution.

Access to capital

As an investor in vertically focused AI, we also know that investor demand is strong for those founders that demonstrate a whole-hearted adoption of AI and are able to get to market and gain traction. As a result, not only do you have new levels of operating and capital efficiency potential, you also have greater access to capital that matches your specific needs. There are investors out there looking for big market AI stories, but there are also investors like us at CreativeCo that are looking for more focused AI strategies.

Our third CreativeCo fund is all AI — but it’s niched-down AI. We have AI for roofing contractors (ProLine), AI for self-storage operators (Swivl), and AI for subscription businesses (Churnkey’s subscription agents).

Insane AI productivity tools

Moreover, early stage teams now have AI at their back to operate with next-level productivity and pace to bring their solutions to market.

We are currently researching AI for other verticals, and like any research today — we are actively using AI for collaboration. AI is enabling us to canvas a larger surface area of markets much faster, helping us qualify verticals of interest where AI can make a material impact at the core of the solution.

(If you are a team targeting a focused market with AI, we’d love to discuss)

Letting ChatGPT-5 unpack this topic further leads to the following suggestions:

These same AI enabled analytical powers are available to founders to quickly power through difficult questions. And as you have likely experienced, you can keep getting deeper answers at each level — down to the specific implementation requirements. Your small team of engineers can leverage all of this on-demand knowledge and AI software development tools to get something into market.

Obviously, all of the above interactions are just surface level stuff and launching a business still requires lots of building, selling and iterating. But as a 54 year old entrepreneur, these tools and capabilities are insane compared to what we did over the last 20 years.

A good time to be a founder

So it’s all in front of you now — a giant architecture shift opportunity, any vertical market, access to capital, and insane productivity tools. We’re excited to find you when you’re looking for your first $1-$3M check to keep building.