What I’m seeing with SaaS founders and CEOs navigating the GenAI transition — the ones who built something that worked, and are now in the gap between what they were fit for and what comes next. Post 2 of 6

You’ve shipped the AI features. You’ve run the strategy sessions. The effort is real. It’s not working because you’re solving a post-PMF problem when you have a pre-PMF problem.

Post-PMF problems respond to execution. More features, better go-to-market, tighter process — these work when you know what the market wants and you’re optimizing delivery. That’s the game you’ve been playing, and you’re good at it.

Pre-PMF problems require clarity first. What does the market want now? What does the product need to become? What assumptions from the last PMF are now the constraint? You can’t execute your way to answers to those questions — and every cycle you spend trying, GenAI startups gain ground. They’re pre-PMF too. They just started there. They’re not carrying what you’re carrying.

The AI initiatives aren’t wrong. They’re the right kind of work for the wrong kind of problem. When you’re pre-PMF again, the move isn’t more — it’s different.

See how I’m making sense of the larger pattern: A lens drawn from Carlota Perez