Arvid Kahl
Software entrepreneur who bootstrapped and sold FeedbackPanda and now builds Podscan; writes The Bootstrapped Founder.
Arvid Kahl did not write this page. ppll compiled it from their own words, each linked to the source. Is this you? · Report a mistake
Latest x.com
What they believe
-
Product quality and software engineering ability no longer function as a competitive moat because AI can replicate them quickly.
But here's what I know for certain: product isn't a moat. Software engineering capability isn't a moat. Not anymore.
thebootstrappedfounder.comSaid 3 Apr 2026This on korrents
-
A business, not its AI vendor, bears legal responsibility when an integrated AI tool causes harm to a customer.
If you have a customer chatbot and it causes damage, it's not the chatbot company that's responsible. It's you.
thebootstrappedfounder.comSaid 20 Mar 2026This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Feed
As its own page →Hiding
15 October
14 October
13 October
12 October
3 April
From one piece The Increasing Risk of Building in Public 3 beliefs · thebootstrappedfounder.com
-
korrents.com
Deep, relationship-based customer moats remain something AI coding tools cannot replicate for a competitor.Their words
No agentic coding tool is going to replicate that for your competitor.
The Increasing Risk of Building in Publicthebootstrappedfounder.com
-
Their words
the likelihood of inspiring someone to build a competitor was too high, and the return on sharing was too low to justify the exposure. That threshold has effectively collapsed to zero.
The Increasing Risk of Building in Publicthebootstrappedfounder.com
-
Their words
But here's what I know for certain: product isn't a moat. Software engineering capability isn't a moat. Not anymore.
The Increasing Risk of Building in Publicthebootstrappedfounder.com
20 March
From one piece AI Liability: The Landmines Under Your SaaS 3 beliefs · thebootstrappedfounder.com
-
korrents.com
The durable competitive moat in an AI-driven business is proprietary human-originated data, not the AI itself.Their words
The competitive moat for a business right now is not the use of AI. It's human-originating, high-quality, high-fidelity data that other systems can't replicate - even if they implement the exact same features and are built by the same agentic systems.
AI Liability: The Landmines Under Your SaaSthebootstrappedfounder.com
-
korrents.com
Any AI-driven action is legally defensible if it followed a revocable moment of user consent.Their words
As long as there's a moment of consent - and that consent is revocable - any AI action is defensible.
AI Liability: The Landmines Under Your SaaSthebootstrappedfounder.com
-
korrents.com
A business, not its AI vendor, bears legal responsibility when an integrated AI tool causes harm to a customer.Their words
If you have a customer chatbot and it causes damage, it's not the chatbot company that's responsible. It's you.
AI Liability: The Landmines Under Your SaaSthebootstrappedfounder.com
13 March
From one piece Data Is the Only Moat 3 beliefs · thebootstrappedfounder.com
-
Their words
Making your software business an API-first business is probably one of the smartest things you can do today.
-
Their words
If you run a software business that is purely transformative - that takes incoming data, does something to it, and turns the data back out - that will be a problem.
-
korrents.com
Real-world, human-generated data is becoming the only durable moat for software businesses over the next decade.Their words
I believe that data - real-world data, mostly human-generated, validated, and cleaned - is the only reliable moat we have as software founders in the near and mid-term future.
13 February
From one piece When Long-Term Investments Finally Pay Off 3 beliefs · thebootstrappedfounder.com
-
korrents.com
Patience is a competitive advantage.Their words
Patience, it turns out, is a competitive advantage.
When Long-Term Investments Finally Pay Offthebootstrappedfounder.com
-
korrents.com
GPT-based AI systems can now reliably automate around 80% of data acquisition and verification work.Their words
The GPT systems have gotten so good that they can do a reliable 80% of the work I used to do when it comes to data acquisition and verification.
When Long-Term Investments Finally Pay Offthebootstrappedfounder.com
-
Their words
But the quality of these systems isn't just in the code they write. It's also in the code I don't have to write. And maybe more importantly, their actual value is in the code I would never have written, or could never have written, or never would have wanted to write.
When Long-Term Investments Finally Pay Offthebootstrappedfounder.com
6 February
From one piece How to Actually Use Claude Code to Build Serious Software 3 beliefs · thebootstrappedfounder.com
-
korrents.com
In iterative problem-solving, each failure has value because it rules out one way that doesn't work.Their words
Failure is a good thing because it teaches us another way of how it's not to be accomplished.
-
korrents.com
Claude Code will eventually build persistent, failure-tolerant iteration into its default operating loop.Their words
I have a strong feeling Claude Code will adopt this methodology eventually into the main loop.
-
korrents.com
The value of agentic coding tools comes from how you configure and constrain them, not from raw code generation.Their words
It's that the value of agentic coding comes from how you configure and constrain it, not from the raw code generation.
30 January
23 January
16 January
9 January
2 January
20 September 2024
-
Lovedrcmnd.app
ClaudeTheir words
What amazes me about these interactions is not just that Claude could help me solve the problems, but how it walked me through the process, explaining each step.
-
Usesrcmnd.app
ChatGPTTheir words
This includes platforms like ChatGPT and Claude. These are my go-to for brainstorming, writing, problem-solving, and even some coding tasks.
-
Usesrcmnd.app
PHPStormTheir words
These are integrated directly into my IDE (I use PHP Storm).
19 August 2024
8 May 2024
3 March 2024
Nothing matches.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 23 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
Product quality and software engineering ability no longer function as a competitive moat because AI can replicate them quickly.
But here's what I know for certain: product isn't a moat. Software engineering capability isn't a moat. Not anymore.
The Increasing Risk of Building in Public Said 3 Apr 2026
The revenue level at which publicly sharing business details invites cloning has fallen to essentially zero because of AI coding agents.
the likelihood of inspiring someone to build a competitor was too high, and the return on sharing was too low to justify the exposure. That threshold has effectively collapsed to zero.
The Increasing Risk of Building in Public Said 3 Apr 2026
Deep, relationship-based customer moats remain something AI coding tools cannot replicate for a competitor.
No agentic coding tool is going to replicate that for your competitor.
The Increasing Risk of Building in Public Said 3 Apr 2026
Show 20 more
A business, not its AI vendor, bears legal responsibility when an integrated AI tool causes harm to a customer.
If you have a customer chatbot and it causes damage, it's not the chatbot company that's responsible. It's you.
AI Liability: The Landmines Under Your SaaS Said 20 Mar 2026
Any AI-driven action is legally defensible if it followed a revocable moment of user consent.
As long as there's a moment of consent - and that consent is revocable - any AI action is defensible.
AI Liability: The Landmines Under Your SaaS Said 20 Mar 2026
The durable competitive moat in an AI-driven business is proprietary human-originated data, not the AI itself.
The competitive moat for a business right now is not the use of AI. It's human-originating, high-quality, high-fidelity data that other systems can't replicate - even if they implement the exact same features and are built by the same agentic systems.
AI Liability: The Landmines Under Your SaaS Said 20 Mar 2026
Real-world, human-generated data is becoming the only durable moat for software businesses over the next decade.
I believe that data - real-world data, mostly human-generated, validated, and cleaned - is the only reliable moat we have as software founders in the near and mid-term future.
Data Is the Only Moat Said 13 Mar 2026
Software businesses that merely transform incoming data and pass it back out are highly vulnerable to being replaced by agentic AI.
If you run a software business that is purely transformative - that takes incoming data, does something to it, and turns the data back out - that will be a problem.
Data Is the Only Moat Said 13 Mar 2026
Building software products API-first, with near-parity between UI and API capabilities, is a smart strategic move today.
Making your software business an API-first business is probably one of the smartest things you can do today.
Data Is the Only Moat Said 13 Mar 2026
The real value of AI coding agents is in the code a developer would never have written themselves, not just what they generate for you.
But the quality of these systems isn't just in the code they write. It's also in the code I don't have to write. And maybe more importantly, their actual value is in the code I would never have written, or could never have written, or never would have wanted to write.
When Long-Term Investments Finally Pay Off Said 13 Feb 2026
GPT-based AI systems can now reliably automate around 80% of data acquisition and verification work.
The GPT systems have gotten so good that they can do a reliable 80% of the work I used to do when it comes to data acquisition and verification.
When Long-Term Investments Finally Pay Off Said 13 Feb 2026
Patience is a competitive advantage.
Patience, it turns out, is a competitive advantage.
When Long-Term Investments Finally Pay Off Said 13 Feb 2026
The value of agentic coding tools comes from how you configure and constrain them, not from raw code generation.
It's that the value of agentic coding comes from how you configure and constrain it, not from the raw code generation.
How to Actually Use Claude Code to Build Serious Software Said 6 Feb 2026
Claude Code will eventually build persistent, failure-tolerant iteration into its default operating loop.
I have a strong feeling Claude Code will adopt this methodology eventually into the main loop.
How to Actually Use Claude Code to Build Serious Software Said 6 Feb 2026
In iterative problem-solving, each failure has value because it rules out one way that doesn't work.
Failure is a good thing because it teaches us another way of how it's not to be accomplished.
How to Actually Use Claude Code to Build Serious Software Said 6 Feb 2026
People pursue hobbies largely for value that can't be easily monetized.
Here's the thing: most of the time, we do things we love because they produce value that's not easily quantified.
Follow Your Passion (But Not Like That) Said 30 Jan 2026
Every hobby community has profitable auxiliary niches serving needs its members can't fill themselves.
You'll find this in most non-professional activities-there's always something auxiliary but still in high demand because people can't do it themselves.
Follow Your Passion (But Not Like That) Said 30 Jan 2026
Solving your community's problems, not just doing your passion for pay, is the path to a profitable business.
Just doing your thing for money rarely works. My personal take on "follow your passion" is this: find the place where other people have the same passion, then solve their problems.
Follow Your Passion (But Not Like That) Said 30 Jan 2026
Over-indexing on small daily improvements causes a business to miss bigger, more impactful opportunities.
if you over-index on the idea of small improvements, then you stop seeing the pivotal, critical mass movements that you might make.
The 1% Improvement Myth: Why Customer Conversations Beat Micro-Improvements Every Time Said 23 Jan 2026
Direct communication with customers matters more than small, incremental product tweaks.
That communication with the customer is more important than minimal, gradual improvement.
The 1% Improvement Myth: Why Customer Conversations Beat Micro-Improvements Every Time Said 23 Jan 2026
Frequent conversations with customers continually correct a founder's mistaken assumptions about the market.
Your assumptions will constantly clash with reality, and they will be refined slightly every single time you have a conversation.
The 1% Improvement Myth: Why Customer Conversations Beat Micro-Improvements Every Time Said 23 Jan 2026
Advice to never give up becomes dangerous once a venture passes an unknowable tipping point.
"Don't give up" is really, really useful advice-until a certain point. After that, it becomes extremely dangerous.
Don’t Give Up… Your Assumptions Said 16 Jan 2026
Successful founders are distinguished by knowing what to give up and when, not by refusing to ever quit.
The founders who succeed aren't the ones who never give up-they're the ones who know what to give up and when.
Don’t Give Up… Your Assumptions Said 16 Jan 2026
Beliefs others hold too
Patience is a competitive advantage. 2 hold this
Patience, it turns out, is a competitive advantage.
When Long-Term Investments Finally Pay Off Said 13 Feb 2026
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
Recommends rcmnd
rcmnd What they recommend 3 things — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
Recent
Uses PHPStorm
These are integrated directly into my IDE (I use PHP Storm).
thebootstrappedfounder.com 20 Sept 2024
Uses ChatGPT
This includes platforms like ChatGPT and Claude. These are my go-to for brainstorming, writing, problem-solving, and even some coding tasks.
thebootstrappedfounder.com 20 Sept 2024
Loved Claude
What amazes me about these interactions is not just that Claude could help me solve the problems, but how it walked me through the process, explaining each step.
thebootstrappedfounder.com 20 Sept 2024
Where they publish
Blog thebootstrappedfounder.com The Bootstrapped Founder, his blog, newsletter and podcast.
Open thebootstrappedfounder.com
Recent
- The Increasing Risk of Building in Public 3 Apr 2026 Reading Time: 6 minutesBuilding in public once helped me sell my company. Today, that same transparency could destroy yours. That’s not hyperbole. I owe my entire career as a writer, podcaster, and founder to being radi…
- AI Liability: The Landmines Under Your SaaS 20 Mar 2026 Reading Time: 10 minutesA couple things happened these last weeks that brought into sharp focus just how naively we interact with agentic systems — to the point where we get surprised by the consequences of using them.…
- Data Is the Only Moat 13 Mar 2026 Reading Time: 7 minutesHere’s a question I’ve been sitting with lately: if building software keeps getting easier — and it clearly is — then what exactly are we building our businesses on? Because conversations about th…
Show 7 more
- When Long-Term Investments Finally Pay Off 13 Feb 2026 Reading Time: 6 minutesThere’s something deeply satisfying about watching seeds you planted a year ago finally break through the soil. Figuratively, even though I do enjoy growing my own Tomatoes. But I digress. Today,…
- How to Actually Use Claude Code to Build Serious Software 6 Feb 2026 Reading Time: 7 minutesI’ve been using Claude Code for over half a year now, pretty much exclusively, to build my platform. Haven’t really deviated much to other tools. And I think I’ve gathered enough experience with t…
- Follow Your Passion (But Not Like That) 30 Jan 2026 Reading Time: 6 minutesA while ago, I asked my Twitter friends to tell me what the most annoying and most infuriating piece of entrepreneurial advice is that they ever received. And overwhelmingly, “follow your passion”…
- The 1% Improvement Myth: Why Customer Conversations Beat Micro-Improvements Every Time 23 Jan 2026 Reading Time: 4 minutesLet’s add another one to the series of entrepreneurial advice that just really irritates me. Today, I’m going after “improve 1% every day” — you know, that meme or mantra about making tiny little…
- Don’t Give Up… Your Assumptions 16 Jan 2026 Reading Time: 5 minutesLet’s dive into a piece of entrepreneurial advice that’s highly irritating and very dangerous. Today I want to talk about the one that I get so much: “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up. Force your…
- Many Heads, Not Many Hats: The Founder’s Identity Crisis 9 Jan 2026 Reading Time: 8 minutesWe often joke in entrepreneurship about founders having to wear many hats. But I think that metaphor is wrong. It’s not about swapping hats. It’s about growing entirely new heads. Not just the cov…
- The Case Against Vendor Lock-In: Why Easy Exit Means Better Retention 2 Jan 2026 Reading Time: 7 minutesSometimes software founders are a weird bunch. They’ve built their businesses on open source software and the contributions of people who’ve done a lot of work for free. They’ve benefited at great…
Link verified 5 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
x.com @arvidkahl His X account.
Recent
- And there are still people out there considering agentic engineering anything but a quantum leap. 15 Oct 2026
- Linus, the eternal pragmatist. I really like that he calls out curiosity and willingness to learn new tools as something useful. Here is a dev who has seen a lot, if not “it all”, and he still has optimism for this new tool. I’m quite happy to see that. 15 Oct 2026
- I know I’m way behind the times but this is my first flight in the agentic AI era, and I can’t believe that I get to use free in-flight WiFi to check in on the PRs currently being worked on by my Claude code instances from the Claude app on my phone. Beyond wild. 14 Oct 2026
Show 17 more
- Okay I could watch this for hours. 14 Oct 2026
- Honestly, libgen and AA are still great distribution top-of-funnels for both my books. I know a lot of people download them and never pay, but they wouldn’t have bought them anyway. But some buy after reading. I have a trail of thank-you emails that proves that. “Freemium” 🤣 14 Oct 2026
- Take note, vibecoders, hypecoders, and tradcoders alike: it’s not really about if you CAN actually build a suitable replacement (which is hard, to the point of too hard), but that there is a STRONG DESIRE TO TRY right now. If you’re a capable entrepreneur, that’s all you need. 14 Oct 2026
- “Hey Claude, implement every item on this list. Make no mistakes.” 14 Oct 2026
- If I read “it’s not X, it’s Y” one more time… 14 Oct 2026
- This likely isn't "enough" for plenty of the cutting-edge devs here on X, but this shows a trend that, at its logical conclusion, means that each company (or Ai-enabled team within) will eventually have the option to do all inference in-house. Do we want this? 14 Oct 2026
- Furniture used to be arranged to facilitate conversations among the people sitting on it. Then came the TV, and all seats started pointing at the screen. Chats moved into the kitchen and other places. Apple: Hey, let's add a noisy central screen to the kitchen, lol. 13 Oct 2026
- Quick view into my X analytics. I must admit I’m surprised to see that 50% of my followers are considered “active.” That is quite a large number, and suggests that they really did something about bots and dormant accounts. 13 Oct 2026
- This, with all things enterprise. LDAP, SCIM, SSO, SAML, and very like soon MCP contracts: once large players need your SaaS, it’s much less about the first S and more about the second S, with all the integrations and custom&complex long-term arrangements. Can’t vibecode trust. 13 Oct 2026
- Do NOT EVER put your dev credentials in .env files or any other location an agent can easily look up. Keep it in a password vault, and ensure that it requires a password on every access attempt. Agents are really good at computer use, too. Protect your secrets from your agents. 12 Oct 2026
- I will consider “software solved” when I can join 3 zoom calls in a row without someone asking “can you hear me?” 12 Oct 2026
- One thing I don’t get: why did OpenAI drop the gpt nano model family? It’s a massive workhorse for so many background AI tasks, but no new model is there price-wise. gpt6-Luna is 2x on low context and 4x on high context. Thought they’d make an even cheaper one, but seems not. 12 Oct 2026
- The inbound I get from enterprise customers who want multi-year supply contracts and integrations tells me that software is very much not dead. Personal software won’t mesh with process-driven hierarchical businesses for a long old while. 12 Oct 2026
- 1950: “I do not see why the machine should not enter any one of the fields normally covered by the human intellect, and eventually compete on equal terms.” (Alan Turing) 2026: “OpenAI stop solving problems plz” (Mathematicians, in great admiration of Turing’s work) 11 Oct 2026
- If you can, supply your coding agents with a read-only user to your prod DB, ideally a read replica. You’d be surprised how much more effective this will make the implementation and testing journey when the agent can look at and verify prod DB data (safely). 11 Oct 2026
- Instead of “transpire this to Rust” or “write optimized C code”, we’ll likely have a birds-eye-level language like “for this dataset, persist the p50 and 95 values every hour” and “validate the hmac signature of this response.” Human as architect, not as construction worker. 10 Oct 2026
- One of the most interesting premises of Star Trek is that no one HAS to work in their semi-utopian future, but everyone chooses to anyway. I believe that will hold true even if AI replaces what we do now. Maybe life is more than commuting and sprint retrospectives. 10 Oct 2026
Link verified 5 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
GitHub arvidkahl His GitHub account.
Recent
- sizeable — An Elixir library to make File Sizes human-readable 19 Aug 2024
- pdfd 8 May 2024
- podscan-api-whisper-s2t 3 Mar 2024
Link verified 5 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
About the English under a post
Some people here publish in a language other than English. Where they do, this site shows a machine translation beneath the post, in this typeface — the site's own, not theirs.
The post itself is never changed, moved or hidden: what is set in the serif above is exactly what the person published, and it is what to quote them on. A translation can be wrong in ways that matter, especially about tone.
Only the post's own words are translated. A quoted post, a linked article and a belief on korrents.com are left in their original language.