{
  "id": 105898,
  "title": "Building a company in 2026: What I’m learning along the way",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/03/building-a-company-in-2026-what-im-learning-along-the-way",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-08-03T23:55:20.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/neilton_rocha_dev/building-a-company-in-2026-what-im-learning-along-the-way-15n5"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Over 18 years in technology, spanning six as a CTO in startups, I have gained expertise in architecture, cloud infrastructure, engineering teams, incidents, and delivery deadlines. However, my latest role as co-founder at CatechLabs has revealed a crucial difference: knowing how to build software is not the same as knowing how to build a company. As I continue to learn the latter, I observe that building software has become much faster with the aid of AI, enabling a small team to create what once took months in mere days. This speed, though advantageous, can lead to a temptation to equate shipping with progress. A functional prototype, despite its utility, does not demonstrate a viable business model. Many products share similar models, interfaces, and promises, making it challenging to distinguish a true problem from a false one. My engineering instincts often prompt me to begin solving immediately. However, now I first seek to understand the customer's problem, its cost, its priority, and who holds the authority to purchase. This approach helps to avoid building the wrong product, which can be done efficiently. One of the most valuable aspects of this journey has been engaging with customers and the individuals who manage the processes we aim to improve. I focus on understanding the current work process, identifying where time is lost, which steps are manual, where errors occur, and what would justify modifying the existing procedure. While customers may appreciate demonstrations and express interest in using the product, this does not necessarily translate to a purchase. Stronger signals include urgency, budget, access to decision-makers, willingness to conduct a pilot, and commitment to altering the process. Sales discussions have also become a valuable source of product insights. Objections highlight areas of ambiguity, while unanswered proposals and missed opportunities often reveal challenges related to urgency, positioning, pricing, or trust. During a recent conversation with a customer, they inquired about the value of paying for our platform instead of granting their team access to Claude, OpenAI's AI model. Initially, I considered the technical aspects, such as retrieval, permissions, orchestration, integrations, security, and data architecture. However, these points did not address the core issue. The customer sought to understand the operational changes the platform would bring. This experience prompted a shift in our approach to product explanation. Rather than emphasizing models and agents, we now focus on the workflow. Customers are burdened by manual tasks like collecting information, reviewing documents, checking inconsistencies, and repeating similar analyses across multiple cases. The value lies not in access to an AI model, but in streamlining this process, making it faster, more consistent, traceable, and easier to review. We now give greater attention to structured workflows, audit trails, integrations, and human validation, while decreasing focus on generic chat features. As part of this transition, I have been studying various disciplines less central to my previous work as a CTO. Several books frequently referenced by founders include \"The Mom Test\" by Rob Fitzpatrick, \"Build\" by Tony Fadell, and \"Amp It Up\" by Frank Slootman. Additionally, I follow Lenny's Newsletter, which shares practical lessons on product, growth, leadership, and company building. These resources do not offer formulas but assist me in asking better questions, avoiding common errors, and learning more swiftly. In conclusion, while building software has never been faster, creating something valuable remains a formidable challenge. This realization has led me to focus on transitioning from technology-driven development to building a company around that technology. CatechLabs is still in its early stages, and I am diligently documenting the lessons learned as we progress. For more information, visit CatechLabs.",
  "summary": "I have spent the last 18 years working in technology, including around six years as a CTO in startups. Architecture, cloud infrastructure, engineering teams, incidents, and delivery deadlines are familiar to me. This is also my second time as a co-founder, but my role is different now. At CatechLabs, I work across product, sales, customer discovery, positioning, partnerships, and strategy. That…",
  "key_points": [
    "Building software faster with AI doesn't guarantee a viable business model.",
    "Understanding customer problems, costs, priorities, and decision-makers is crucial."
  ],
  "editors_take": "Shifting from a tech-driven approach to building a company requires founders to prioritize understanding customer problems, workflows, and value drivers over just shipping software and showcasing product features.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}