How AI Is Changing Product Development

March 10, 2026

This is Second Opinion, a newsletter created by Hustle Fund, where we weigh in (with our second opinion) and give tactical advice on founder situations.

The strongest rounds start with undeniable metrics.

Are you pitching like it’s 2021?

Rippling surveyed 50+ VCs to map out what's shifted in fundraising and they found:

  • The average AI startup now reaches unicorn status in under 4 years. That's 2x faster than previous tech eras.

  • 60% of VCs say the fundraising bar is higher than in past cycles.

  • Fundraising is now an outcome of growth, not a proof point of potential.

But the bigger shift is in how decisions get made (60% moderately higher).

As Kevin Zhang, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures, put it: "Twitter hype, proof of concept logos, and team credentials can all be valuable inputs, but don't themselves add up to durability.”

Rippling broke down the full VC insights, rejection patterns, and new growth expectations in the Founder's Guide to Fundraising in the AI Era. It's the playbook founders are using to recalibrate before their next raise.

*this is sponsored.

Today’s Edition

We love a good "I was wrong" moment.

Our guest went from "AI will never replace a senior engineer" to "I was wrong, and here we are" in about six months.

✨ Today's episode: what AI changes about building products (and what it doesn't).

The bottleneck in product development used to be writing code. Now it's something else entirely.

In this episode, Shiyan Koh, GP of Hustle Fund, chats with Tobias Dunn-Krahn, CTO of Atono.io, about how he's using AI to move faster on product and design, why getting to 90% is easy and the last 10% is a grind, and where he thinks context becomes the real competitive advantage.

Plus, his hot take on taste, accountability, and why you still can't fully delegate to an AI. Not yet, anyway.

Here's the episode:

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See ya in two weeks!

 PS: Trying to create the perfect pitch deck? This is for you.