The Market Doesn't Care

And a sales qualification framework

Author

Michael Houck
May 27, 2025

Hey y’all — here’s today at a glance:

Opportunity → Dev Shop for Vibecoders

Framework → Sales Qualification Framework

Tool → MindStudio

Trend → AI Design Tools

Quote → The Market Doesn’t Care

PS — Become a member to get access to my founder membership including an engaged community, fundraising support, fireside chats and more.

Growth is crazy hard right now:

  • Paid ads are always getting more expensive.

  • SEO’s AI fixation is making it harder than ever to stand out.

  • Cold email reply rates are dropping to where inboxes get burned faster and faster.

  • Even on social media, you can sort of tell some people are using AI.

But there’s one thing AI hasn’t disrupted yet: credibility.

People still listen when real human creators who’ve built trustworthy reputations talk about a product on their accounts.

If you want to stand out right now, collabing with creators on sponsored posts, product testimonials, and more is the best way.

So I’m offering up my personal network with over 450 creators with 10s of millions of total followers on LinkedIn and X for you to partner with.

Here’s how it works:

  1. You tell me here what you’re looking for (launch support, big announcement, or just normal influencer marketing)

  2. I send you a list of creators who would be a good fit

  3. You make your picks

And then we’ll loop them in to create the content.

It’s basically a creator agency but for LinkedIn and X.

Let’s build social proof for your brand.

🔗 Houck’s Picks

My favorite finds of the week.

Fundraising

  • Peter Walker on startup ecosystem ranking by stage (Link)

Growth

  • Eric Partaker on how to build a sales pipeline (Link)

  • Krista Morgan on how to get to profitability (Link)

  • John Rush on every growth method he's tried (Link)

  • Troy Munson on the 6 things he does for cold emails (Link)

  • Guillaume on TikTok strategies of AI consumer apps (Link)

ICYMI

  • Harness the strengths of humans + AI with Bounti*

  • Ben Erez on hiring the right type of PM (Link)

  • Robert Kaminski on how specific your startup positioning should be (Link)

  • Yurii Rebryk on AI tools for startup founders (Link)

💡 Opportunity: Dev Shop to Help Vibecoders

I’m on the record more than a few times talking about how the rise of AI will lead to a Cambrian explosion of entrepreneurship. As legacy companies use it to lay people off and cut costs, those people (and others) will try their hand at being founders due to the lower barrier of entry.

We’re already seeing this — people who I never thought would become founders are sending me vibecoded MVPs.

And this is objectively good. Not everyone will succeed as a founder but more startups = stronger societies.

The problem? A lot of these people won’t be engineers.

They won’t know anything about how to build software.

They won’t know anything about security.

They won’t know common UX patterns.

Their products, in many cases, simply won’t be ready for consumer use.

But they might actually be good ideas since these people likely have some expertise about the problems they’re solving for.

So… if you do know how to build good software, there’s a clear gap where you can brand yourself and a team as the ideal partner for these vibecoded MVPs to become full products.

🧠 Framework: Sales Qualification Framework

I get a ton of questions from founders about sales.

Product-centric founders know it’s a weakness (or, even worse, they don’t).

Sales-centric founders are always hungry for any edge to get better at it.

And one of the biggest mistakes founders make in sales is wasting valuable time on leads who will never become customers.

A lot of what’s in this qualification framework is written simply, but that doesn’t mean it’s obvious. I’d argue a lot of this is easy to forget — the hint of potential revenue makes you ignore these things (when it shouldn’t).

🛠 Tool: MindStudio

Boost your productivity with MindStudio — access hundreds of free plug-and-play AI agents to automate tasks, save time, and move faster.

  • Want more control? Customize any agent or build your own from scratch.

  • Built a killer agent? Launch it as a micro-SaaS — no dev work needed.

Try it in 30 seconds with their most popular agent: YouTube Video → Executive Summary

  1. Download the Chrome extension

  2. Generate a crisp exec summary on any video — free, instant, and right inside YouTube.

Curious what this looks like? Here’s an exec summary of the latest Founding Journey podcast episode.*

📈 Trend: AI Design Tools

At this point if you’re coding without Cursor or another AI tool, you’re falling behind.

With Figma on the verge of an IPO (and therefore about to no longer be even technically a startup), it makes sense that we’re seeing a spike of interest in AI design tools like Flora.

The next wave is coming.

And with so much talk about how “taste” will matter most when building products with the help of AI, it also makes sense that designers are searching to learn more about them.

I suspect we’re seeing something similar in most verticals, but designers are an interesting market right now since their capabilities are dramatically increasing, not just the volume of their output.

💬 Quote: The Market Doesn’t Care

It’s 4am right now.

Sometimes I write these issues over the weekend, other times it’s the Friday before.

But sometimes I’m particularly busy and there’s no good option other than staying up late to write.

But you, reading this right now, couldn’t care less. And you shouldn’t.

You’re just hoping that when you open an email with the ⛰️ in the subject line, from me, that something in there is valuable for you.

It’s a weekly bar I set for myself.

And it doesn’t matter what I have to do in order to deliver.

The same is true for your product.

Your users don’t care about the blood, sweat, and tears.

They’ll respect it, maybe even admire it, but you’re not selling inspiration — you’re selling a solution to their problem.

You are entitled to nothing from them.

The market simply doesn’t care.

So use that as a reminder to build something great.

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