Some Startups Exist to Solve a Problem, And Others Exist to Be Startups

I’m not claiming to be the most senior developer in the world, but I’ve been working with computers and technology since I was around nine, and I’m now nineteen. Most of that time has been spent privately tinkering with and building software across web development, backend systems (in C, C#, VB.NET, Python, and more), blockchains, large language models, and other technologies. I’m certainly not a seasoned expert in everything I’ve touched, but after roughly a decade of exploring different parts of the technology ecosystem, I’ve developed a reasonably broad technical understanding of how these technologies work, what they’re for, and how they relate to one another. I therefore believe I've spent enough time around technology to see a growing pattern with technology startups that has become increasingly difficult to ignore.

More and more startups, primarily AI B2B/SaaS startups since these are among the easiest to make, seem to launch with the same type of interchangeable identity. Their branding often feels as though it could belong to almost any company, with little indication of a clear or precise purpose.

This is not really an argument about names alone. Google is an obvious counterexample, as its name tells you essentially nothing about organizing the world's information, yet the company was still built around an extraordinarily ambitious idea. The generic name is simply one visible part of a broader pattern that I think a lot of people are starting to see. I think there is a fundamental difference between starting a company because there is a problem you desperately and deeply want to solve, and starting a company because you desperately want to have a startup, whether it's for mere financial gain or bragging rights (though I'm not sure you should be able to brag about an entirely useless and fundamentally unnecessary startup).

In the first case, I feel the progression often looks something like:

deeply felt problem or mission → company built to pursue it → product → brand

In the second, it often feels more like:

desire to found a startup → search for a promising market (often with several pivots) → product opportunity → mission constructed around it → brand

When somebody is passionately committed to accomplishing something that touches them deeply, especially something they expect to spend decades working toward, everything about the company follows from that goal. SpaceX is the clearest example I can immediately think of, because they were founded to make humanity multiplanetary, and that remains their goal today. The name SpaceX even literally means "Space Exploration Technologies." There is a reason for SpaceX to exist beyond the fact that starting such a company was socially prestigious or potentially lucrative. The company follows a precise mission, and that mission always came first. It was never, ever about personal financial gain or prestige. Elon Musk risked everything for SpaceX's unlikely success, because of how critically important its mission was for humanity as a whole.

That is immensely different from deciding that you want to become a startup founder, looking around for a growing market (presently AI), finding something investors might fund, building a product, and then constructing a grander explanation for why the company matters. Increasingly, I think this difference becomes visible in the branding. When a company is built around a specific problem or goal that its founders genuinely care about, the brand can naturally reflect that purpose. When the desire to build a startup comes first and the problem is chosen afterward, the company has less of an inherent identity, so its name, logo, mission statement, and aesthetic are more likely to be manufactured from the same generic startup conventions as everyone else. That is where you often seem to get the interchangeable five-letter name, abstract geometric logo, generic futuristic aesthetic, and language broad enough that it could describe fifty other startups.

Again, there are exceptions. None of this proves anything by itself. A company can have an abstract name and be deeply mission-driven, or have an extremely literal name and still exist mainly because its founders saw an opportunity to make money. Nor does a company need some civilization-scale mission to matter. A founder can be obsessed with making payroll software less painful, making logistics cheaper, building better developer tools, or fixing some tiny problem almost nobody else cares about (until it actually gets fixed or improved, and then people notice). The size or grandeur of the mission is not the important part. The important part is whether the founder cares about a fundamentally meaningful goal.

Would you still want the problem solved if nobody knew you were responsible? Would you still work on it if there were no fundraising announcements, valuation milestones, press coverage, founder status, or impressive title attached to your name? Would you still consider it a good outcome if somebody else solved the problem first? Would you still care about the problem if there were no enormous financial payoff waiting at the end? These are extremely important questions, and some of these questions sadly wouldn't even be applicable to many AI startup founders, because they don't even know what problem they're supposed to be solving; they simply found a scheme that results in paying customers who are probably getting ripped off in some way.

These questions get much closer to the distinction I am trying to describe which many will be quick to call out. There is nothing wrong with making money. People need money, companies need money, and financial incentives are one of the primary mechanisms we have for getting useful things built. I get that. That is how the world works at present, whether we like it or not, and there's no avoiding it for now. Still, there is a difference between money being the fuel that allows you to pursue something and money being the entire reason you went looking for something to pursue in the first place. The same applies to status. There is nothing wrong with being proud of building a company, but if the primary attraction is being able to call yourself a founder, raise a round, become CEO, build something valuable, or eventually sell it, then the company is much more dependent on those rewards continuing to feel worthwhile.

A founder with a deeper reason to care has another source of motivation, which is the fact that they want the thing to exist. They want the spacecraft to fly, the technology to work, the disease treated, the infrastructure built, the scientific problem solved, the product made possible, or the frustrating little problem they have thought about for years finally fixed. The company is just the structure they built around that desire. I suspect this also explains why so many of the most generic startup archetypes feel so temporary. They appear, announce themselves loudly, raise some money, pivot, rebrand, maybe get acquired, quietly stagnate, or disappear, often leaving the impression that there was never enough underneath the company to survive once the initial excitement, money, or status started fading.

I think you can often see traces of this distinction in everything from the mission statement to the product to, yes, the name. But who am I? It's easy to criticize x, y, and z as a spectator. It's up to you to determine whether I'm spouting utter nonsense or sharing information and observations worth considering. I ultimately only care that people follow their heart and create things they genuinely believe should exist for the benefit of our species, rather than pursuing a startup simply because they want the money or status attached to one. I believe that if you center your entire life around obtaining as much as you can of an abstract, primitive currency, then your life doens't have much meaning, and I'm saying this because I think it's important, not as an insult.