The landscape today has changed dramatically. We all know AI is getting really good at churning out basic code and MVPs. But I still believe there's real value in human creativity and understanding the deeper nuances of building great products.
Here's what I'm thinking: 1. Keep it small and focused (just 3-4 of us) - engineers and designers who genuinely care about building great stuff 2. Take on meaningful client work while building our own products 3. Get involved in open source and build useful tools for the community 4. Keep working on our own products (starting with my form builder)
What I'm inspired by: 1. 37signals: Started as a web design agency, created Basecamp, and eventually built Hey.com 2. überdosis: Built products for clients and worked on an open source text editor called TipTap (tiptap.dev) which is now their primary focus
What I want to avoid: 1. Becoming yet another "digital transformation" agency (you know the type) 2. Racing to the bottom against AI-generated MVPs 3. The typical agency trap of scaling up with juniors and PMs 4. Saying yes to every project that comes along
Some things I keep wondering about: 1. How would you position an agency today with AI in the picture? 2. Anyone here managed to build their own products while running client work? 3. What kind of work should we focus on that AI won't easily replace? 4. Has anyone grown their agency through open source work?
Really want to hear from folks who: 1. Have built small but solid agencies 2. Are actually using AI in their dev workflow (not just talking about it) 3. Have juggled client work with building products 4. Have grown through open source