The Rise of Mayflyism
A vibe-first coding culture that favours quick-to-build and easy-to-launch startups at the cost of long-term value creation
I was reflecting on a conversation I had recently with an aspiring entrepreneur. They were excited about the prospect of founding a startup because: "It's easier to start one today with AI."
They elaborated with conviction: a team is no longer necessary since AI agents could build the first version of the product, automate early marketing, and even generate revenue. All while they traveled the world, free from the corporate golden handcuffs.
I admit, it was a compelling picture of acceleration and independence fueled by the rise of vibe coding and AI workflows.
As someone who’s been an entrepreneur for over 15 years, with a reasonable degree of success and the privilege of learning from founders I deeply respect, I’ve come to hold a pluralistic view of entrepreneurship: there is no objective “right” way to do it. That’s not to say, however, that all paths are equally effective. Even with all the frameworks, methodologies, and tactics available today, startups still fail, sometimes spectacularly, while others achieve meteoric success that catches even seasoned observers off guard.
A (not so) quiet revolution is underway. Perhaps it would be unwise to dismiss it as naive just yet. Tech entrepreneurship, once the domain of the few highly skilled, suddenly feels accessible to the many, even the less equipped. And who doesn’t want more entrepreneurs, right?
Curious to better understand this dynamic, especially among first-time founders, I began to notice that it is less about a long-brewed desire to solve hard problems or a cultivated growth mindset, that fundamentally encourages them to take the leap of faith and jump into the abyss of entrepreneurship. Instead, they are being pulled in by the commoditization of coding and the illusion of proximity to success. They’re being swayed out of their shell because the fog has lifted just enough to reveal the first few miles of a once-hazy path to startup life. And on that newly visible path, the scenery is seductive: green pastures, birds chirping, and unicorns roaming freely.
Isn’t that a brittle foundation on which to begin an entrepreneurial journey? Are those really the expectations that prepare first-time founders for the winding road ahead?
I’m proposing this to be a symptom of a myopic understanding of entrepreneurship, a narrow belief that because the tools (be it AI) are easy, the path must be too. The result might be a new generation of startups that are technically (or at least what passes as technical in a vibe-first shipping mentality) impressive but fundamentally hollow.
I call them mayflies (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayfly).
The velocity with which new (vibe) ventures are built appears to be inversely proportional to their business sustainability. The faster and easier a product is to build, the more fragile it becomes as a business in the long run. This is the Mayfly Effect.
A mayfly startup can potentially enjoy short-term success but fails to create long-term value because:
(1) AI lowers the entry barrier for certain classes of startups/products/services;
(2) Upon recognizing the opportunity, more players join the game;
(3) As more and more players enter the same game, the margin value converges to zero because, like it or not, AI (especially LLMs) is still expensive for complex use-cases and it'll probably be the case for quite some time. Even with AI costs lowering, the race to achieve business sustainability, meaning balancing Return-On-Investment for customers while ensuring healthy margins for the startup offering the product/service, is brutal.
Among all the mayfly startups already popping up left and right, I still believe that a few will achieve escape velocity. It’s a numbers game and inevitable, really, just as it’s true that most will fail. And that's okay because at the macro level, both success and failure contribute to the emerging AI economy.
But, if we zoom in at the individual-level and take the first-time founder perspective, the critical question becomes: How do I think about my place in this new AI reality?
While consciously embracing mayflyism might be viable path for some, I’d suggest that working our way out of it begins with a commitment to intellectual honesty when dissecting the real value of "AI" in an “AI startup”. Consider the following exercise:
Imagine you live in a world without AI.
How would your startup look like? What's the value it could create for customers in this scenario?Add AI back in.
What actual problem(s) does it solve compared to the non-AI version? And what real value are you adding by introducing AI?Imagine you already have customers using your non-AI version and you want to sell them the AI solution.
What is the actual delta in terms of ROI that would justify a switch over to the (most likely) more expensive AI-powered solution? And then, given the margins and the implementation costs, do you (still) have a business? What are the tradeoffs?
Through the lens of these questions, at the extremes, we might identify two main types of AI startups:
* (Majority) Startups where AI is just a feature (an add-on) to a core problem-solution space, where the already existing solution doesn't involve AI. The likely winners here are incumbents that are fast at adopting & introducing AI functionality to their (existing) customers. Their sluggishness can create short-term opportunities for new startups to capture that value, but raises the question of about long-term moat durability.
* (Minority) Startups solving fundamental problems that can't realistically be solved without AI, or where existing solutions are grossly inefficient without it. Again, the most likely winners here are the ones first to market, with a strong distribution strategy and a defensible long-term advantage.
Therefore, I advocate for a return to fundamentals when it comes to founding startups in this brave new (AI) world. What's the actual business if we remove AI altogether? Does it hold water without it?
If YES, you might be building an AI feature. Fine, but can you turn this into an actual product/business that stands on its own? If NO, you might be tackling an important/fundamental problem. Great, what's the go-to-market and (long-term) moat-building strategy?
A final word on mayflyism and its protagonists.
It is not my intention to be mocking those who try this route into entrepreneurship, quite the opposite. It’s an invitation rather, to reflect: if everyone can found a tech startup, what becomes of startups that are worth founding? It’s about noticing the shift (or perhaps acceleration of a dormant characteristic) in entrepreneurial intention, from mission-driven resilience to opportunistic automation and ephemerality; from building something that endures, to shipping something that trends. And perhaps most importantly, it’s about understanding what gets lost when building becomes too easy.
Because winning? That’s easy to see for everyone, hence the hype.
This isn’t to say ambition is lacking. In fact, many of the founders I interacted with myself are deeply ambitious, but their ambition is often decoupled from the discipline of entrepreneurship, the practice of entrepreneurship which is NOT limited to a set of technical skills (engineering or business). What we’re seeing is not a lack of effort, but a redirection of effort toward acceleration, rather than depth.
Mayflyism disregards the fact that the most meaningful outcomes in entrepreneurship are shaped by what can’t be automated, the intrinsically human skills that define good founders, cultivated continuously over time: emotional intelligence to make sound judgment calls, and the clarity of thought required to cut through chaos. It is not precision that the practice of entrepreneurship calls for. It’s resilience.
I don’t see the mayfly founder as unserious. They are simply swimming in a cultural current that rewards velocity over durability, hype over hardship, and momentum over mastery. And the danger isn’t failed attempts. There are valuable lessons in those. But it’s the individual burnout, the long-term erosion of what entrepreneurship actually means: solving meaningful problems, for real people, in ways that withstand both market shifts and personal disillusionment.
This is not a critique of those who dare to start, please do! But in doing so, perhaps it’s worth occasionally reflecting on why we start (even why we continue), how we build, and what we define as success. That reflection can act as a mirror, offering a more nuanced perspective on entrepreneurship, one that goes beyond the glamour.
So while vibe coding has cleared the fog from the trailhead, it may have also blurred the horizon because the clearer the beginning seems, the more invisible the mountain ahead appears. And it takes consistency and a certain kind of maturity, forged in the fires of entrepreneurship, to realize that the uphill climb is the way, not the obstacle.