There’s a major shift happening in the world of startups right now.

The nature of startups, small businesses and established organisations is evolving, and at an increasing pace. What was once an image of two technical founders in a garage in San Francisco or a college dorm in Boston has now been replaced by a generation of  independent creatives who build internet audiences and then serve them with tasteful products and experiences.

Today, most of the founders I speak to are as much creative directors as they are programmers, and we are building faster than ever before. This change is being driven by a fundamental shift in the tooling of how new digital and physical products are conceived, developed and released into the market. There’s a saying that first we shape our spaces, and then our spaces shape us. Well, the architecture of a modern company is more reminiscent of a film studio or creative production than that of a traditional office. It’s more fluid, dynamic, flexible and agile than that. What used to be whiteboards of algorithms now looks like Figma canvases and TikTok trends.

So, what is driving that change?

Well, the first thing is that the tools for building software have become both exponentially more democratised, and more powerful. Take for example platforms such as Cursor AI, Claude and ShadCDNs - they have each transformed and sped up the digital product development process. What once took months and a team of professional designers and engineers can now be prototyped in hours by a hobbyist. The architecture of these technologies don’t just impact the speed to market - they also impact the ability to experiment, try out new ideas and see what resonates with their audience.

Much like social media posts, software now can be archived, remixed, disposed and re-uploaded. It is ever more dynamic and fluid. In previous eras, reaching a large audience meant publishing in a newspaper or getting airtime on the radio - which was slow and expensive. It was a process that meant that there was a premium on perfection, and there was less space for innovation, for play, for experimenting with form and subject matter, and for creating new ways of doing things. Rather, today anyone can put a post on Threads, X or TikTok in seconds. In fact, they can even create the content in a similar amount of time too. Tools like CapCut, ChatGPT and the like rapidly decrease the amount of resource needed to create outputs that can drive business growth across all industries. That shift has enabled new creators to treat the development of software more like social media content creation - quickly producible, easy to share and customer centric.

Secondly, the sources of inspiration of grown. Everything from Reddit subgroups, TikTok comments, tweets and threads all contribute to the internet mind. The best creators can spot patterns in the noise, and can see the unmet needs hiding in plain sight. As such, the objective isn’t just to build products, but rather to answer questions that our audiences haven’t fully even articulated yet.

We are now entering an era where small teams of people with the right vision and the ability to tap into the culture can create truly massive projects. There’s no need to be in Silicon Valley, to have raised millions from high profile venture capitalists, or even to have deep experience in a specific subject.

The way we measure success is also changing. While daily active users and customer acquisition and retention is still important, it is not the full picture anymore. The depth and quality of user engagement, the lore around a project, the subsequent projects that it inspires, these are all the new indicators of a successful product or startup.

This new approach to building projects is not just about being modern or trendy. It represents a fundamental shift in how we interact with technology. We don’t want to just use a product - there’s enough products. What we all want is to be part of a story and a cult.

What it means is that the next wave of successful companies may not differentiate on the basis of having the best algorithm, but rather having the most insightful way of observing and communicating with their audience, a compelling vision and the ability to quickly and effectively bring that vision to life. That also means that the skills that make founders great are expanding and becoming more interdisciplinary.

Perhaps most importantly though, it means that the opportunity to create incredible, industry changing companies is more accessible than it has ever been. The tools exist. The ideas are all around us. The distribution channels are built. All that is required is the combination of creativity to see them and the resilience to bring them into fruition.

This approach therefore is not about just about building technology. It’s about creating culture and manifesting new ways of doing things. Programming is now just a part of the solution. The ecosystem that is build around the products that are sold, is where all the true value lies. 

The modern startup is fast, social and participatory, and creative entrepreneurs are leading the movement.