AI for Enhancement, Not Replacement with Jabeen Zaidi
Startups in hype-driven markets don’t fail because of competition. They fail because of missteps in the first 90 days. Build too fast and you miss what users actually need. Blend in, and you’re forgotten. Lose trust early, and you may never recover.
When the AI wave hit, Jabeen Zaidi, founder of Spring AI, faced that exact storm. Competing against giants like Adobe and Canva, she sat down with Collin on an episode of the Predictable Revenue Podcast to discuss how Spring gained traction by starting small, earning user trust, and iterating with honest feedback instead of chasing hype.
If you’re building in AI, crypto, or any market where trends move faster than teams, these lessons will help you survive long enough to grow.
Find the Fear, Then Solve It
New technology fails less from missing features than from human hesitation. Fear slows adoption.
In AI, that fear was evident: “This is going to replace me.” In other markets, it might be “I’ll lose my money” or “I can’t trust this with my life.” Ignore the emotional barrier, and even the best product will stall.
Spring AI grew by addressing that fear directly. Creative professionals were hesitant to embrace generative AI. Products that positioned themselves as co-pilots, enhancing work without replacing it, turned skepticism into curiosity and adoption.
Validate in Public Before Scaling
Founders who build in private risk wasting months on features no one wants. Real validation happens where users are unfiltered, in Reddit threads, Discord, Slack groups, and niche forums.
Jabeen spent months listening to creatives share frustrations with early AI tools: clunky, untrustworthy, and impersonal. By the time Spring’s MVP launched, it spoke directly to those frustrations and found immediate adoption.
Start small, listen hard, and build where the truth lives.
Compete by Focus, Not Size
In crowded markets, going broad is the fastest way to vanish. Giants can cast wide nets. Startups win by being indispensable to a narrow audience.
Spring AI focused on one professional workflow and made it exceptional. That narrow scope gave the team speed and adaptability that bigger competitors couldn’t match. In markets that shift weekly, focus is your moat.
Build Trust as a Feature
Winning early adopters isn’t just about what your product can do. It’s about whether people trust it enough to use it in real work.
During the AI boom, creatives hesitated to upload client projects into tools they didn’t understand. Products that led with clarity, your files are yours, your models are private, earned loyalty and word of mouth.
Features get attention. Trust keeps it.
From Idea to Repeatable Adoption
Speed without direction burns startups out. The companies that survive hype cycles move fast and deliberately, staying focused on a clear problem and a specific user.
Repeatable adoption starts with one strong use case. That first cohort’s success shows you which features matter, which promises resonate, and where to go next. Products that grow through that loop turn early traction into a lasting engine.
Conclusion
Hype cycles will always come and go. What separates the startups that last is the founder’s discipline to ignore the noise and focus on real adoption.
Jabeen Zaidi’s and Spring AI’s story is just one example, but every founder faces the same choice: chase the market, or build the product your users can’t live without. The second path is slower, quieter, and harder. It’s also the only one that compounds.
If you want to hear the full story behind Spring AI’s approach, check out her conversation on the Predictable Revenue Podcast.
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