Building a business entirely on a closed-source API from a major provider like Anthropic or OpenAI is precarious. These platform companies can and do release new capabilities that directly compete with and subsume the functionalities of startups in their ecosystem, effectively erasing their business overnight.

Unlike traditional SaaS where product-market fit meant a decade of stability, the rapid evolution of AI models makes today's PMF fleeting. Founders face the risk that their product could feel obsolete within a year, requiring constant innovation just to stay relevant in a rapidly changing market.

Founders often underestimate how hard it is to gain initial traction. If you have a business that's working, even if it has flaws like platform risk or being B2C, it's often better to continue growing it than to start a theoretically "better" business from scratch. The existing momentum is a valuable and hard-to-replicate asset.

Historical tech cycles show that 95-99% of companies fail. For most current AI startups, the next 12-18 months represent a value-maximizing moment to sell before their technology is commoditized or outcompeted by foundation models.

While no-code can help validate an idea, it inevitably leads to a growth-killing stall. Founders will hit a platform limitation that forces them to stand still for 3-6 months to rewrite the entire codebase from scratch. This sacrifices critical early-stage feature velocity and market responsiveness.

While the urge to be an early adopter is strong, there's a significant risk in building AI features that may become obsolete or commoditized overnight. A new feature could be reduced to a simple 'skill' on a major AI platform, negating the development effort and investment.

If you're a foundational platform, you will inevitably compete with customers building on top of you. Address this transparently by informing them of your product roadmap. A large market allows for 'coopetition' where you can partner, compete, and sell to each other simultaneously in a healthy ecosystem.

Startups are becoming wary of building on OpenAI's platform due to the significant risk of OpenAI launching competing applications (e.g., Sora for video), rendering their products obsolete. This "platform risk" is pushing developers toward neutral providers like Anthropic or open-source models to protect their businesses.

The journey of any successful startup is not a straight line; it inevitably includes multiple moments where the company faces existential threats. Understanding and normalizing this reality from the beginning helps founders and investors frame their relationship as a long-term partnership built to withstand extreme volatility.