Discover/The Twenty Minute VC (20VC)The Twenty Minute VC (20VC)/20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Recor...

VCs investing in AI without coding themselves are making a critical mistake

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC)The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an...

“Well, I think what you should be doing is coding with Cursor and building things yourself.”

51:55 / 52:21

Like, how good is it? How differentiating is it? Does it have a real note? Well, what should I know then as one of these VCs piling money into AI? Well, I think what you should be doing is coding with Cursor and building things yourself. If you do that, I think you do that, if I remember correctly. Yeah. Exactly. But Lovable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you only live Lovable or only have you tried Cursor as well? I've tried CoreCard. Okay. Good. Yeah. So the point is, like, I just think that, like, if I meet investors today that haven't actually downloaded and tried to build something themselves,

About this clip

Sebastian Siemiatkowski argues that VCs investing in AI need hands-on experience building with AI coding tools like Cursor and Lovable. He suggests that investors who haven't actually downloaded and tried building something themselves lack the fundamental understanding needed to evaluate AI investments properly.

Why this clip

Provides actionable advice for VCs on how to better understand AI investments through direct experience with the technology.

51:55 - 52:2126stactical advice
ai-investingvc-diligencecoding-tools

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What they said next

Building a 'company in a box' with AI agents handling accounting and CRM

9:07 - 53s · prediction

More from this episode

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC)The Twenty Minute VC (20VC)

prediction

The death of proprietary data moats is coming next

Sebastian Siemiatkowski explains why falling software creation costs are just the beginning. He argues that data switching costs - currently protecting companies like CRM vendors through proprietary data lock-in - will be the next major business moat to collapse.

4:58 - 5:3637s
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The Twenty Minute VC (20VC)The Twenty Minute VC (20VC)

prediction

Why build software when AI agents can connect everything for you?

Sebastian questions whether companies should build integrated software solutions when AI agents will soon move data between products seamlessly. He explores the 'company in a box' model and expresses skepticism about the overcrowded customer support AI space with 14 companies raising $100M+ recently.

12:45 - 13:2541s
ai-agentssaas-integrationcustomer-support

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC)The Twenty Minute VC (20VC)

prediction

Building a 'company in a box' with AI agents handling accounting and CRM

Sebastian describes his weekend experiment creating a 'company in a box' system that uses Claude AI agents to manage open source accounting and CRM software. He demonstrates how AI can automate basic business functions like bookkeeping invoices and setting up customer accounts, suggesting a future where companies rely less on traditional SaaS tools.

9:07 - 10:0053s
ai-agentsautomationsaas-disruption

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC)The Twenty Minute VC (20VC)

founder story

American VCs forced European startup to move to Silicon Valley - it was a disaster

Sebastian Siemiatkowski shares the cautionary tale of Truecaller, whose American VCs pressured them to relocate their engineering team from Europe to Silicon Valley. The move backfired spectacularly - they struggled to recruit, lost a year of traction, and were eventually downgraded by the same VCs who pushed for the relocation.

50:38 - 51:3254s
silicon-valleyeuropean-startupsvc-advice

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC)The Twenty Minute VC (20VC)

Business Mechanics

AI is allowing us to reinvent the wheel all the time. If you come in and say, I want to write this piece of code, somebody else prompted the same AI, the exact same thing somewhere else. We're still using tons of server power to generate the exact same code.

Identifies an inefficiency in current AI usage that most people haven't considered. The 'reinvent the wheel' metaphor is accessible and the waste angle creates urgency around optimization.

8:04 - 8:2723s

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