Jason Barron

📚 WSJ Bestselling Author of “The Visual MBA” | Group Product Manager @Adobe | Dad & Husband | 💡 Design Thinker & Problem Solver

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

Today is the day! The Visual MBA is now available nationwide at B&N and Amazon! Coming soon international. Thank you all for the incredible support!! #sketchnotes #business #publishing #startup #books #greatreads #creativity

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

@AlexFinn Great walkthrough - thanks for sharing. Can’t wait to try it out

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

Followed this exact process and saved ~$5,000 on taxes this year.

One additional tip - have it create a .md file at the very end of your session with memory to help with next year’s filing

[leopardracer @leopardracer]

https://t.co/C4zi0ViCnj

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

@japaninator @Tyler7138 @Everyday_Powers No, we never did - though I am grateful it's an option for those in need

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

This was a feature customers have been asking for months. Other priorities kept pushing it. Built and released in less than a week. Unreal.

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

As a PM, just submitted my first PR. Approved, merged, and going out to customers this week 🤯

Claude code is amazing.

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

@hankrsmith Such a special place. Met my wife and graduated from there 20 years ago.

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

@defense_of_fam I love your parents and SVU. Such a special place and I’m proud to be a Knight! 🙌

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

@iannuttall Tried the API and ended up spending too much, switched to the subscription. Hopefully they keep it turned on

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

@gregisenberg Would love to join, and I’d sponsor a Mac Mini for one of your winners as well from The Visual MBA. Great idea!

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

I understand the move here, but no Tesla looks as good as the Model S. Wish they’d keep it going

[Tesla @Tesla]

As we shift to an autonomous future, Model S & X production will wind down next quarter.

If you’d like to own one of them, now’s a good time to place your order.

Tesla wouldn’t be what it is today without Model S & X and their (early) owners – thank you for your support over the last decade

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

Yep. Workflows have fundamentally changed in the vibe code world

[Hardik Pandya @hvpandya]

Figma is very quickly becoming a huge bottleneck in building products.

You build a prototype.

People like the vision and buy into it.

Then Engineers and Product sit and wait till you deliver the whole spec in Figma.

Product & Eng have both become faster due to AI.

Design is getting squeezed in the middle with the old way of working.

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

@Zeneca those doing stuff aren’t tweeting about it. those not doing stuff are.

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

@AdamWhitcroft As one who loves Figma - couldn’t agree more.

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

@businessbarista Claude

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

An exciting year ahead

[GREG ISENBERG @gregisenberg]

2026 is the GREATEST time to build a startup in 30 years

I’m 36. I’ve sold 3 startups, helped build companies that raised billions, and backed teams from seed to unicorn.

20 MEGA shifts that make this the BEST time to build in a GENERATION:

1. Hardware got smart. Download open-source AI models from HuggingFace to cheap robots and they're suddenly smart. Opens up tons of use-cases.

2. SaaS is imploding. AI can replicate $500K software for pennies. Enterprise software that took 30 engineers now requires 1 and a Claude Code subscription. Founders will go more niche and more custom and outprice incumbents.

3. Outcome-based pricing is eating subscriptions. With AI agents handling work automatically, founders can guarantee results instead of selling features. This creates a massive arbitrage opportunity to steal market share from rigid subscription models.

4. Vibe marketing is the new marketing. AI agents/tools like Lindy, Gemini and Claude Code Using agents to do personalized outreach, ads and content creation it’s getting good. This is like getting on social in 2005.

5. Social is FYP-ified. Distribution no longer requires massive followings, just content that hits. Founders can build audience from zero without ads and then convert them to owned media channels (text/email).

6. Interfaces are vanishing. Conversations are replacing dashboards across industries. This removes training barriers and means customers can use sophisticated products immediately.

7. Companies are obsessed with efficiency and cutting costs right now. Corporate budgets are getting reallocated to AI. Companies are cutting traditional software spend to make room for AI-powered alternatives. This creates fast-tracked approvals for startups delivering 10x efficiency.

8. 99% of MVPs won't need VC. Low-cost MVPs combined with creator partnerships and AI automation allow bootstrapped scaling. For most software businesses, outside funding is now unnecessary.

9. Global teams. You don’t need to hire in your own city anymore. Opens up tons of arbitrage opportunities and ways to create products unlike before.

10. Millions of creators want to get paid. If you have the right product, the right network of creators, you can hit scale insanely efficiently. Never before did this exist. Next gen founders are building startups community first, software second.

11. Prototyping is nearly instant. With Lovable, Rork etc, you can test ideas in days, not months. MVP speed is basically 1x/week. This creates room for multiple products from small companies (multipreneurship), helps get to PMF faster,

12. LLM APIs create building blocks weekly. I can’t even keep up with how many new APIs/tools coming out from LLMs weekly. Example: Nano Banana pro comes out, probably 1000 ideas built on top of that can be $5M/year businesses.

13. $1m+ revenue per employee. With the leverage of LLMs, community and agents, employees are way more efficient. It won’t be uncommon to generate $1m per employee. This will lead to a rise of "multipreneurship", small teams owning multiple products /businesses. Holding companies will be as common as startups.

14. Superniche is the new niche. Because costs to create software startups is 1/100th, you can service little niches (i call them superniches) and still have a life-changing business.

15. Mobile app ecosystem about to 10X. 2 reasons. First is, adding AI to apps make apps more useful. More useful apps, make more money. Second,

16. Compliance and boring workflows are suddenly buildable. Permits, audits, insurance, payroll edge cases, filings, RFPs. These were “too annoying” for startups before. Agents thrive on rules, checklists, and repetition. The least sexy problems now have the best unit economics.

17. Claude Code killed the “engineering bottleneck.” The constraint is no longer “can we build it,” it’s “do we understand the workflow deeply enough.” The winning founders are ex-operators who encode tribal knowledge into agents. Code is cheap. Taste + domain insight is scarce.

18. The long tail of software is now profitable. Niches that capped at $200k ARR can clear $5M with near-zero marginal cost.

19. Services are quietly becoming software. Manual agencies are one agent away from product margins.

20. if AI can replicate $500K software for $20/month, what’s your moat? distribution, customer service, brand, data etc. REALLY good time to be a world class designer/marketer.

(and even more.... but this is getting long already!)

We've entered the rarest of windows...

when multiple technological shifts collide at once, creating a brief period where small teams can build things that were previously impossible.

THE FUTURE OF BUILDING STARTUPS IS DIFFERENT.

I know this...

This unique moment won't last forever. Markets will adapt. Giants will respond. The window will close.

But right now, a founder with clear vision and bias for action can build more in six months than was previously possible in years.

(note: if you need an idea to get creative juices flowing, grab one at @ideabrowser)

The next generation of great companies is being created right now, many by founders you've never heard of.

Some by people who would never have had a shot in previous cycles.

That's the beauty of these rare windows. The playing field briefly levels, and the future belongs to those who see it clearly and move first.

It's a sacred time, don't bookmark/share this, build something in 2026, will ya?

Happy building, my friends. 2026 is yours.

Am I wrong?

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

@marcus_sappus @perseverare1776 Same, I read the comments just to make sure someone called it out

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

@JonBbC_TechGeek It’s cool, but the range is too limited currently. You have to park close though for it register, and at that point it’s as quick just to walk to the car.

[Jason Barron @jasbarron]

Any other fellow strategists out there?