It’s easy to look around the AI-enabled tech space and feel behind. Someone shipped three apps this week. Someone else built a SaaS over the weekend. There’s a demo, a launch post, and a Stripe payment form. Meanwhile, you’re still working through the same problem you were working through on Tuesday.
I love what these tools make possible. I use them every day. An AI-enabled tortoise benefits from them too. There’s no reward for being a Luddite or doing something the hard way when a tool could help you do it better.
We didn’t stop telling the tortoise-and-hare story when we invented cars. Or computers. Tools that help us go faster don’t replace the principle. Experience, effort, and iteration still matter, even when AI helps us move through parts of that process more quickly.
But I have to remind myself how little a launch tells me about what someone has actually built.
Getting something working is one milestone. Finding out whether it’s useful, watching where people get stuck, and making it dependable takes more work. You learn a lot of this by supporting the thing after people start using it.
The tortoise-and-hare fable still has something to say here, though I wouldn’t assign those roles based on how often someone ships. A person moving quickly may have years of experience behind them. They may be learning through each launch, making mistakes, and putting in the same effort and iteration you are. You’re seeing the public part of that process.
And moving slowly doesn’t automatically mean you’re building something substantial, either. You still have to put it in front of people and find out.
I’m reminding myself of this as much as anyone. I want to use AI to build better things and get them into people’s hands sooner. I also want to give that work the experience, effort, and iteration it needs, without assuming I’m behind every time someone posts a launch.