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Sell first, build second, automate last: A solo founder’s playbook for the AI era

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Sell first, build second, automate last: A solo founder’s playbook for the AI era

AI has made building almost effortless. In 2019, Emilis Strimaitis spent nearly a year, and the efforts of a developer agency, on a shopping app that failed. Today, he says, an AI subscription and a weekend would produce the same app, and it would fail just as surely, only 100 times faster.

Speaking at a webinar in association with Yourstory, part of VibeCode 30 at TechSparks 2026, the Head of Product Innovation at Hostinger argued that the steps founders took before AI existed have not gone away. Finding the problem, finding the people who have it and getting them to pay still come first. AI simply changes how fast you can do everything after that.

If you can build something in a weekend, so can thousands of others. Strimaitis noted that something launched on Monday can have two or three copies by Friday, and one of them will likely be free. Getting attention, he added, has been the real problem all along, long before AI.

The trap is easy to fall into. Founders build with AI, add agents to run the product, then add more agents to run those agents, and still have zero customers. His description: a self-driving car with no roads to drive on.

The audience took part throughout the session, beginning with a live poll on their biggest struggle in launching a digital product or online business. The top answer, at 41%, was being unsure how to sell.

Strimaitis has bootstrapped around 15 businesses over 15 years, generating well over $10 million with no investors.


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