What if AI was a gold mine...

A few weeks ago, during a catchup, my friend Tony challenged me to lean into new technology tools and become more intimately involved in building Fairbridge’s operations. Soon after, I found a chance to create a site for a conference we are organizing. What began as a productivity exercise became an emotional journey into how the value landscape is shifting.

The Philosophy

Technological advancement is radically reshaping value exchange. New models let customers pay only for what they use with striking precision. Founders must rethink how they create, communicate, deliver, and capture value or risk widening gaps between customer value and unit economics that destroy market share. This is now the core competency.

The Background

One of the best pieces I read on pricing was by my friend Steve Dupree in 2013, which helped catalyze subscription and menu-based pricing. This model unlocked massive revenue for companies like Microsoft and Adobe, who previously made revenue with the single sale of a cd and launch of an updated version. In this model, customers rarely examine usage, and we all just forget about it. I am a little late to the party, but this latent model seems to have just died. Native AI companies use credits/tokens where you pay only for what you consume. My recent experience with Lovable and Bolt brought this home.

The Story

I called a friend quoted me $1,500 for the conference site. A WordPress template is ~$500, but doesn’t quite get there. So, I channeled my inner Tony and built it myself. After an afternoon of tinkering, I figured I could put this together for ~$100! How exciting! The process that unfolded was a wild experience of emotions and deep questions:

How much could I save? (The appeal of usage-based pricing): $1,500 was not a consideration; the opportunity cost vs. $100 is too high. Plus, the idea of paying only for what I use seemed fair. The site eventually cost ~$250, including learning costs, a deep discount.

How hard is it to build the functionality I need? (Value-based pricing and the premium for avoiding pain): I was incredibly happy with the product.

Adding CRM, payments, surveys etc. was shockingly easy with text and a little code.

How profitable are they? (Margin-based pricing: Your investors are customers too!): The raw material / COGS for no-code tools are the credits they buy from foundation LLMs. As an investor, I pondered how it’s possible to deliver so much value at such a discount. For context, data center spend for 2025 alone is predicted at $400bn. Assume 10 year depreciation and you need $40bn of annual revenue to just recoup this investment. For context Microsoft Office’s and Saleforce revenue are ~$100bn and ~$40bn, respectively. Factor in a modest gross margin and suddenly recouping this investment is a herculean undertaking.

The Outcome
As a founder, no-code tools have unlocked an insane capability to express myself and my ideas through prototyping. As a user, the customer value is unmatched! However, as an investor, I worry; can these models sustain themselves against the enormous capital investment required to deliver such delight? At Fairbridge, we focus on unlocking underseved markets in areas of lagging social progress. Technology is key, but it’s an amplifier of intent. It can only work in the hands of superior mission-driven founders and robust business design.

People to talk to
At Fairbridge, our goal is to inspire, mobilize, and equip founders building for progress in high-value areas: Below are a few people you should reach out to on the topics discussed in this letter. For Founders seeking:

• Help with pricing strategy, I’d recommend a conversation with Ed Lee! This is what he literally does for a living

• The best lawyer who understands how to build for mission talk to Tony Wang! He is the best by far.

• Growth talk to Dupree… I don’t know that he has capacity, but I hear he invented growth