Fixing hidden tech misalignment, unlocking growth. 🇺🇸 AI Advisor. @TinySeedFund mentor. Investor: @1SecondEveryday, @shiratronics_i, @empower_sleep
Minneapolis, MN
Joined April 2007
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Does your organization have a place for AI?
In my AI roundtables, people have had to let employees go. Last year, these were fantastic employees. Now, in 2026, they're resisting AI and don't want to use it in day-to-day operations.
The purpose of the organization is to free up the CEO for strategic work, not to maintain or build AI systems.
Who in your company is doing the AI work today?
#AI #Leadership #Startups #CEO
John M. P. Knox retweeted
#AI will take 10-20% of existing #saas businesses to zero. – @robwalling @microconf #microconf #reykjavik #SaaS
John M. P. Knox retweeted
There is a preference for output-based pricing for non-desk-based workers. – Laure Jourmier @microconf #microconf #reykjavik #SaaS
John M. P. Knox retweeted
Ajelix made lots of listicles - they do convert. They’re human made, not #AI slop. “Every listicle tells AI who you are.” –Agnese Jaunošāne @microconf #microconf #reykjavik #SaaS #AI
John M. P. Knox retweeted
Ajelix used niche AI tools as a #SEO play to get attention. –Agnese Jaunošāne @microconf #microconf #reykjavik #SaaS #AI
John M. P. Knox retweeted
Next up well learn how to get 350k users organically using AI. –Agnese Jaunošāne @microconf #microconf #reykjavik #SaaS #AI
John M. P. Knox retweeted
Ajelix has found PR newswire effective to get their message out. –Agnese Jaunošāne @microconf #microconf #reykjavik #SaaS #AI
John M. P. Knox retweeted
Today we announce 1Password for Agents platform, building with companies @Muse, SpaceX Super Intelligence Grok @Bot, @AnthropicAI’s @Claudeai, @OpenAI, @TownAI, @Browserbase, @Browser_use, @heydana_ai, Instinct, @usekernel, @Perplexity_ai, @tryramp, @Tomo, and @wajo_ai, with more integrations on the way. 🎉
We've heard from so many of our customers who want to use these new personal AI agents to help them get more done, but want more control over what the agent can access with the same trust and ease of use they get when using 1Password directly.
1Password for Agents gives your agents access without giving up your passwords. When an agent reaches a sign-in form, it requests a credential from your vault. If you approve the request, 1Password directly auto-fills the credential in the destination site so the agent can’t see or take possession of the credentials.
The agent gets the task done, but it doesn’t get your passwords..
You stay in control. 1Password for Agents free and optional for personal and family accounts. Unless you opt-in to an agent connector, agents cannot touch your vault.
➡️Learn more: bit.ly/487da6J
John M. P. Knox retweeted
The background noise in open offices, in multiple experiments, decreases the ability to do analytical work, increase bugs in software, and decrease the ability to find bugs.
Open floor plans are just a bad idea for any solo work.
John M. P. Knox retweeted
You have to move into labor markets. Labor budgets are much bigger than software budgets. – @EinarVollset @microconf #microconf #reykjavik #SaaS #AI
John M. P. Knox retweeted
Open source is free like a puppy is free.
(Vibe-coded software is worse.)
You pay for everything after it: the food, the vet, the walks in the rain, the chewed couch.
Free software -- or vibe-coded software -- works the same way. Your customer pays in setup time, in hours spent training the team, and in workarounds. When the tool breaks, nobody is there to fix it.
So when a prospect says a free tool does the same thing, your price isn't the problem. They haven't seen the bill for "free" yet.
Don't defend your price, and don't apologize with a discount. Turn the objection around:
"If you think I'm expensive, you should see how expensive 'free' is."
Then explain why: the onboarding, the training, the bugs-fixed, the new features, the integrations to ever-changing external systems, the zero-day security patches, and on and on -- things they would have to do themselves, not just for the cost of the tokens, but their time.
And at what hourly rate I wonder? Most people don't think their time is worth $1/hour, but that might be how they're acting.
This is just one of the insights from the newest Smart Bear Live. E10, out now:
youtube.com/watch?v=pfflbL_i…
At one of my AI roundtables at MicroConf Europe in Reykjavik last month, an operations team reported cutting customer onboarding time by 70%. The result showed up in their hiring plan: "we thought we would have to double our staff this next year, and now we don't."
The work was data migration, one Claude skill per step of a twelve-step process. Another operator explained why the margin moves too.
How they built it, and what the agent learned about their competitors along the way:
movingavg.com/essays/ai-dele…
#AI #SaaS #Operations #MicroConf
John M. P. Knox retweeted
my advice is DONT KEEP UP WITH AI
if its fun for you, great
but if you're trying to get work done just pick codex or claudecode and stick with it, doesn't matter which
keep experimenting with all they can do and get shit done
keeping up with AI is a full-time job. that's why every company needs a frontier team:
the frontier team's job is to keep up as models change. everyone else's job is to use what they learn
we made one @Every and it's completely changed how we work:
0:00 Introduction: Why every company needs a frontier team
2:42 Why the best frontier teams have pirates and architects
4:57 How Head of Evals @hammer_mt builds personal benchmarks
6:46 How Opus edited an explainer video using Slack messages and meeting notes
10:20 Working with AI means protecting other people’s attention
12:26 Why a frontier team needs a “wrangler” like Arielle Shipper
18:58 Why senior editor @jackcheng built a tabless browser
24:37 How resident writer @kplikethebird teaches her AI writing plugin who the reader is
30:51 Inside engineer @JannikJung’s personal AI orchestrator
35:41 Compound engineer @kieranklaassen uses AI to build power tools
I bring a message from an alternate universe: in my world, open source gained popularity in the 1990s.
We thought that open source would kill commercial software, and free music sharing would kill the music industry. Instead, five of the ten richest people got rich in software, and a female musician recently became a billionaire.
Founders: don't feel discouraged!