With the rise of AI tools and more and more tasks being automated, a single person can do more than ever before. This couldn’t be more true for a founder – someone who by definition wears multiple hats.
The key is for the founder to have enough knowledge across different areas and to use the appropriate AI tools to step into different roles for short periods of time. The timeline from idea to MVP is getting shorter, and what happens after launch is still largely unknown territory – but the barrier to getting there has never been lower.
One person, many roles
Marketing, writing, coding, research, finance, even sales – these are all roles that, with the help of AI tools, can be handled by a single person. This is what I’ve already been doing since last year for RunningLog and Planaro. Both products are live. For RunningLog, version 2 was even released last month, and the recurring tasks across both products are handled with the help of AI tools.
The shift is real. What used to require a team of specialists – a developer, a marketer, a copywriter, a designer – can now be managed by one person who knows enough about each area to guide AI effectively. You don’t need to be an expert in everything. You need to know enough to ask the right questions and evaluate the output.
Coding is no longer the biggest task
Coding is now becoming the smallest task in the development and lifecycle of a product. With AI handling much of the implementation, the real time investment shifts elsewhere. Marketing on multiple channels, for example, requires more time and focus than writing the code itself. Marketing and sales optimization for user conversions are naturally becoming the primary focus in the AI era.
This is a mindset shift that many technical founders – myself included – have to make. We’re used to spending most of our time building. Now, building is the fast part. Growing is where the real challenge lives.
The skill of switching roles
Having the overview to know how to connect and blend all of these roles is mandatory. Switching seamlessly from marketing to coding to customer support to content creation is a skill on its own – and it’s one that doesn’t get talked about enough.
The big advantage of this way of working is that it eliminates friction. There are no endless meetings, no miscommunication between departments, and no co-founder mismatches slowing things down. You see a problem, you switch context, you fix it, and you move on.
The Full-stack Founder
I think we’re witnessing the rise of a new type of founder – the Full-stack Founder. Not in the traditional software development sense, but in a broader way: someone who handles everything from idea to marketing, from development to sales, by leveraging AI tools across every stage. It’s not about doing everything perfectly. It’s about moving fast, staying in control, and removing the layers that traditionally slow startups down.
For founders with a broad overview and the willingness to learn across disciplines, this is the best time to build.
