Hey Readers!
How much of your startup tech stack has changed in the last year?
When we published our first Startup Tech Stack edition almost two years ago, I think few of us anticipated just how quickly things would change. Back then, only a handful of platforms were AI-first, and even fewer had fully embraced it. Fast forward to today, and almost every platform is AI-first, all racing to dominate their market.
Given how fast things are changing, and the number of tools we rely on daily to run and grow our startups, we thought it was time for an updated version of the Startup Tech Stack, focused on the latest and most popular tools.
To help you navigate the market landscape, we’ve grouped the latest tools into the following categories:
Scaling with AI - everything to become AI first: Build with AI, Agents & AI Employees, Dev Tools, Research, and Cloud.
GTM tools - everything to help you land customers: GTM/Sales, Design and Marketing.
Operations - everything to help keep the business running: Banking, KYC/Security, Payments, CX, Hiring, Legal, and Automations.
Saving time - everything to help you save time and get back a few hours: Productivity, Docs, and Fundraising.
Let’s explore the latest tools.
The Startup AI Tech Stack
Since publishing previous editions of the Startup Tech Stack, one trend has become clear: tools that weren’t AI-first now are.
Two other trends stand out:
1) Building with AI is now end-to-end
New tools now let builders create everything with AI, from code to websites to fully functional apps. In 2024, these tools helped speed things up - today, they can generate high-quality apps and websites in minutes.
2) New tools are concentrated around Marketing & Productivity
Outside of developer tools, most new products are focused on marketing and productivity. You can now generate full ad campaigns from a few prompts, or even influence how your company appears in AI-generated answers. For example, tools like The Prompting Company help startups get cited when users ask AI models for recommendations.
Looking ahead, the next wave of startups to watch will include those replacing incumbents like Salesforce and Slack. These markets are massive, and still wide open for disruption.
As we mapped the latest tools, a few new additions stood out based on how likely startups are to adopt them over the next year:
Marketing: The Prompting Company - Be cited in AI models - this will likely be useful for so many startups over the coming years, especially as they find new ways to find new customers. Every serious startup should be spending time trying to get cited in these AI models.
KYC: Didit - Stop losing users to slow identity checks. For any startup that requires KYC on customers, the likes of Didit are needed!
Bugs in products: Lucent - See every bug your users experience. Useful for all product teams who are building and growing.
Hire at speed: Jack & Jill - Your perfect hire, introduced within minutes.
Marketing AI Agents: MarkeTeam - The world’s first fully autonomous AI marketing workforce.
Explore 120+ tools this weekend and upgrade your tech stack.
Discover the latest tools in full below and what they do. Don’t see your tool listed? Add it here or leave it in the comments below for subscribers to see!
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I've not bought (paid) any software in a year - that's novel 🤓
The stack is evolving fast, but the real advantage isn’t having more tools, it’s choosing the right ones and integrating them well.