Ask HN: Would a startup for young creatives who reject AI be feasible?

Posted by mondobe 1 day ago

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I am a member of my university's game development club, which puts me around lots of talented programmers as well as artists of all kinds, and I've observed that just about everyone disapproves of AI. The sentiment is especially strong among younger people coming into the club. By "disapproves", I mean they refuse to allow AI-generated content in games and see AI use in general as something like a moral failure.

At the same time, I scroll down the YC startup directory, sorting by launch date, and observe that every non-hardware company (and most of the hardware ones) are entirely based on AI. The demographic I described above, young creatives like the ones in this club, has zero chance of voluntarily using one of these products.

It seems to me, then, that as the moat for most AI startups drops asymptotically to 0 with GPT-6 et al. becoming more capable, this market is mostly a blue ocean (to use the business-book term) for anyone willing to put in the work and actually code something people want. From there, network effects would work as well as they have since the dawn of the Internet.

I am exploring the idea of making such a startup (it started out as a side project which I have been working on by myself for almost 2 years), but I am worried about the attitude of incubators, VCs, and investors in general. Would the lack of AI be a nonstarter for most outside investors? I know people started non-blockchain companies in 2021, but the hype around AI seems orders of magnitude more captivating to anybody who might provide capital. I know bootstrapping is viable for some companies, but would that be the only way? I appreciate any advice people might have.

Comments

Comment by thaeli 1 day ago

There absolutely is a market - anti-AI sentiment among creatives isn't going away. Like any other "purity" branding, it's a real commitment and severely limits your future ability to pivot.

I don't know of anyone in the VC or traditional incubator communities who has an appetite for this. And the groups who are an ideological fit don't have the funds to be worth pursuing.

It's a niche. Like most niches, there's the opportunity to prosper, but yeah - bootstrapping (or angel-bootstrapping if you're lucky and have a personal connection) is pretty much the only way to go here.

Comment by mircerlancerous 1 day ago

You would be foolish to completely avoid AI, but you are also right to be careful. AI is best used for boring stuff that's non-critical, and for stopping you from having to reinvent the wheel.

For example for a game, you could use AI to finish a sprite sheet based on a couple frames you provide, or to give you a pathfinding algorithm.

AI is a resource, and a startup has a better chance of success the better it leverages the few resources it has.

Comment by mondobe 1 day ago

Thanks for the perspective! I tend to consult ChatGPT with high-level queries as a replacement for Google, and I get a lot of mileage out of combining that with plenty of good old documentation-reading.

Comment by LamGC 1 day ago

Since the release of GPT, I have found that the hassle of efficiently using keywords to search for hidden information on Google has been replaced by GPT search. AI should become a powerful assistant, but we cannot give up our own abilities.

Comment by CoolestBeans 1 day ago

I think for kids coming out of university, going against the grain might be one of the most valuable things you can do. The essential skills of critical thinking, problem solving, intuitive and linear thinking, and improvisation are not going anywhere. AI is a very impressive technology but it also is one that steals valuable mental exercise from its users. I can't say that eschewing AI will lead to a successful startup but I have a good feeling that connecting with other people who want to do things the hard way and then doing it will be an extremely valuable experience this early in your tenure. If this AI trend does continue, this will give you and your friends a leg up on those who didn't put in the hours.

Comment by mondobe 1 day ago

Very insightful and encouraging words, thank you!

Comment by worklifepanda 1 day ago

I think (good) VCs will always first and foremost look for the quality of the idea, the potential value returned and solidity of who's pitching it (solidity in terms of ability to deliver, passion, be willing to make sacrifices and learn, etc). And I think VCs are realizing now that there are a lot of people that are not trusting AI so the market attractiveness a product that says AI front and center is not granted.

So yes I don't think that everything needs to have AI by default.

Comment by xyzzy123 1 day ago

I'm curious about provenance. What you're describing sounds kind of like Etsy and while there are still genuine things to be found there it's mostly flooded with mass-produced stuff. The more of a premium "hand-made" artifacts attract, the greater the incentive to counterfeit them.

Comment by mondobe 1 day ago

Good point, and one I've thought about a lot. Right now, I think we're at a stage in the hype cycle where, for the overwhelming majority of founders, appealing to AI hype is much easier than lying to appeal to anti-AI sentiment. If and when this changes, it might manifest as an incentive for companies to be transparent with their source code (either fully open-source or at least "source available" or auditable).

Comment by KinetiNode 1 day ago

Anti AI startup is definitely feasible but it also depends what you mean by anti AI , the thing is most people who know what they are doing and mostly tech people refuse the use of AI because it feels like they're cheating. But most consumers donot care about that , they just care about convenience. The hype around AI is definitely captivating because of so much it is able to do, Anti AI definitely stands out because of so much AI stuff going around but the startup needs to be still good, For example: if you just make a game company saying you never use AI that's not very convincing for anyone to play the games. People don't care about whether you used AI or not most of the time , they care about the game. But if you start a company claiming to make a AI less smartphone with extra privacy that's something people might like because AI is literally EVERYWHERE right now. I'm not very good at examples but you get my point

Comment by Dumblydorr 1 day ago

It may not be true that “most people who know what they’re doing” aren’t using AI. It’s infiltrating into every big company, thousands of very skillful people are all-in blasting out tons of code and work with it. I’m not saying that’s good or bad, just stating the view from industry is: heavy use often encouraged.

Comment by KinetiNode 7 hours ago

Yes but that's for efficiency, they don't just say "make a cool game" they tell the AI exactly what to do so it doesn't break anything , that still need skill and you still have to check the code for bugs , I was referring to people who just put a single prompt and expect something good to be made from it

Comment by minamete 1 day ago

I don’t agree about the “people don’t care that your game doesn’t have AI” part. Games that have AI disclosure have significantly worse sales on Steam than ones who don’t.

Comment by KinetiNode 7 hours ago

Yea I do agree but most of the gamers who actually stream games mostly only care about how good the game is. If it's AI but has a solid storyline and gameplay then it would most probably be a success compared to a game which was created by just "Make a cool game " prompt

Comment by gtadesktop1 6 hours ago

Starting a startup is a great idea. However, your concerns are certainly valid. But investors will invest as long as what you’re doing is worth investing in—they generally don’t care whether you use AI or not; it’s more about the quality of your work and how much money investors can reasonably expect to make from your startup. It’s like borrowing money: investors see the value of your startup and invest with the intention of either getting their money back in full after a certain period at an agreed-upon interest rate—so-called debt securities—or acquiring shares in your startup that give them voting rights in your decisions and a certain percentage of your revenue. Either way, as soon as your startup gains value, larger investors will come on board. The value of your startup depends on how many securities you issue or on your revenue. Bottom line: Investors will generally come as long as you stick to not using AI and your work is of high quality—which I have no doubt about based on your description. Good luck with your idea.

Comment by ben_w 1 day ago

Non-AI-assets: yup, this is sensible. AI is a signal of being unconcerned about being seen as a cheat, absence is good.

Non-AI-code: forget it, you won't be able to avoid it in your libraries, and you won't write the whole engine from scratch.

It's possible to write a whole modern engine without it, but you won't, you'll spin wheels chasing features and never ship.

Comment by pona-a 1 day ago

This is a very flimsy argument to say a vibe coded one-shot Claude app is equivalent to actually hand-made Django app hosted on a Linux system that runs systemd which used Claude PR reviews.

People don't care about your entire dependency chain, see how little the most valuable FOSS libraries recieve in donations or sponsorships compared to end-user apps. They care about how well put together your own app is, which we know AI use changes for the worst (which some argue is worth it for momentum).

As long as your dependencies aren't outright dysfunctional (see rsync debate), it's concensus to disregard AI use there.

Comment by ben_w 1 day ago

Someone recently rage quit one of the linux distros because the maintainers decided to accept LLM generated code (if it was good).

Other distros ban use of LLMs. Not sure how that's going to go down given Linus seems to be willing to use them for the kernel.

I don't think it's avoidable (unless you stick to a pre-LLM game engine), but it's clearly an error to underestimate quite how much people really loathe this stuff.

Comment by mondobe 1 day ago

Fair point about game development. I'm definitely looking more towards creative tools (like music production apps) because making a game engine is just a Herculean task. I've found that velocity is good (i.e. one meaningful feature every day or two) in the early stages of building for the web without AI.

Comment by carver2941 1 day ago

The purity angle is the whole product, so the first pivot kills it. That's why it's a bootstrap play, not a VC one.

Comment by iainctduncan 1 day ago

I work both in the creative arts (currently phd candidate in music and CS, run a jazz night, author of open source music hacking tools) and in the bowels of the tech investment world (diligence practitioner for a company that assesses for PE investment).

Two things: Whether the anti AI slant would work is a marketing question. I happen to think it will, but we are all famously terrible at answering marketing questions until it's hindsight. The only way to know is to start small and find out if your slant resonates.

IMHO, this will absolutely, 100%, need to start bootstrapped and have a plan that involves NEVER giving up more >= 50% ownership. Which can definitely be done, and I've even helped PE firms invest (minority) in these companies. I've seen some fantastic ones. Investors expect you to just do whatever seems like the easy money now, and they are all fucking breathless over AI everywhere right now, to sometimes an astonishingly stupid degree.

Comment by unsupp0rted 1 day ago

I’m an elevator operator. You tell me what floor you’d like and I press the button or control the switch.

I also make casual conversation about the weather and yesterday’s sports highlights, which automatic elevators can’t do.

Can I join?

Comment by mondobe 1 day ago

I have no problem with creative destruction, elevator operators died out for a reason. If there was a group of people who rejected automatic elevators for some reason, it stands to reason there would be a company to snatch up that market. (case in point: no-touch Shabbat elevators for Orthodox Jews)

Comment by brudgers 1 day ago

I am worried about the attitude of incubators, VCs, and investors in general. Would the lack of AI be a nonstarter for most outside investors?

In general, they don’t care about AI or not AI.

They care about the possibility of 100x returns.

This means they care about the possibility of exponential growth.

Most businesses grow linearly at best.

Good luck.