Alekh & Jasleen

The Real Cost of Building a Thin Product Founders often ask us how much technical depth their product actually needs before it can raise money or win an enterprise contract. The honest answer is that the bar has moved. A clean interface sitting on top of a language model used to be enough to get a meeting. Today it is in decline, and the reason is almost always financial rather than technical. A product that any competitor can rebuild over a weekend does not hold its valuation. It does not...

Artificial intelligence is transforming how products are built, but it is not changing why customers buy them. As AI becomes widely accessible, sustainable competitive advantage is shifting away from technology itself and toward customer understanding, product discovery, and strategic judgment. This article explores why the founders who endure will be those who begin with customer problems rather than AI capabilities, and what that means for building successful SaaS products in the years ahead.

Artificial intelligence has become one of the fastest-adopted technologies in modern business history. According to Stanford University's AI Index 2025, 78% of organizations reported using AI in at least one business function during 2024, compared with 55% in the previous year. At the same time, many organizations continue to struggle to demonstrate measurable financial returns from AI investments. Adoption does not automatically translate into value creation. For business leaders, the key...