AI Can Build Your MVP Overnight, But Go-to-Market Is the Real 98% of the Journey

In a recent episode of the talk is biotech! podcast, Guru Singh, Founder and CEO of Scispot, and Kevin Chen, CEO of Hyasynth Bio, discussed a striking paradox in today's startup landscape. Thanks to advanced AI and no-code tools, getting a product off the ground has never been easier, yet sustaining and scaling a business has never been more challenging.

Scispot, known for offering one of the industry's best AI-driven tech stacks for life science labs, exemplifies how technology can turbocharge R&D processes. Guru Singh brings extensive experience in building laboratory data platforms that help biotech companies accelerate their research and development cycles. Meanwhile, Kevin Chen leads Hyasynth Bio, a biotechnology company that engineers yeast to produce cannabinoids through fermentation rather than traditional plant cultivation.

As these experts emphasize, building an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is often just 1-2% of the entrepreneurial journey. The remaining 98% is all about how you take that product to market, outshine competitors, and execute on growth. This article examines why AI-accelerated development is both a blessing and a potential trap, especially for biotech entrepreneurs, and how founders can tackle the real work of go-to-market strategy, marketing execution, and differentiation in a competitive arena.

The Rise of AI-Powered MVPs: Startups in Hours, Not Months

Not long ago, launching even a simple app or digital product required significant coding skill, time, and capital. Today, a solo founder with a laptop can go from idea to a live product in just days. In some cases, entrepreneurs have built functional MVPs in under 24 hours by stitching together AI-driven tools. A new generation of platforms has radically simplified product and backend development:

Lovable AI serves as an AI-powered no-code platform that can transform a concept or Figma design into a working app with minimal coding. It uses generative AI to suggest layouts and even auto-build features based on plain English descriptions.

Supabase provides an open-source backend-as-a-service that instantly delivers a scalable database, authentication, and storage. It spares founders from writing boilerplate backend code, so you have a ready-to-use server in minutes.

ChatGPT and AI Coding Assistants act as tireless pair programmers. Tools like ChatGPT, often paired with GitHub Copilot or Cursor, can brainstorm features, generate code snippets, debug, and even create content or documentation on the fly. This means a single non-technical founder can achieve in a weekend what might have taken a full team weeks.

Indeed, interest in these AI development tools has surged in 2025, reflecting how many new startups are trying this route. The immediate benefit is clear: speed and cost. By leveraging off-the-shelf cloud services and AI, a startup can launch a prototype product with near-zero coding and very little money. There are real-world examples of founders launching products in a matter of hours using just a chat interface and no-code integrations.

This democratization of building is a huge win. It allows more experiments and niche solutions to see the light of day, and lets biotech innovators focus on science while offloading software grunt work. However, this newfound ease also creates a new challenge: if everyone can do it, how do you stand out?

Building the Product: Only "1% of the Game"

The hard truth is that assembling a product, even a sophisticated one, is often the easiest part of a startup's journey today. As Guru Singh noted during the talk is biotech! podcast, "You can build a product in one hour now. But that's just 1% of the game." The remaining 99% is everything that happens after the MVP: finding users, convincing customers, scaling operations, and fending off copycats.

In tech circles, this sentiment is widely echoed. Development is easy; distribution is hard. Software veterans have observed that it's never been easier to build a product, and never harder to get people to notice it.

Statistics back this up. A recent analysis of startup failures found that 34% of failed startups attributed the failure to poor product-market fit, and another 22% failed due to lack of effective marketing. In other words, more than half of startups don't fail because the product didn't get built. They fail because not enough people wanted the product or even knew about it.

Another study found that roughly 56% of startups make fatal marketing mistakes that ultimately doom their business. In the rush to build, many founders under-invest in researching the market, crafting a go-to-market plan, and iterating on how to reach customers.

Why Go-to-Market Is Now the Make-or-Break Factor

Competition has exploded. If it only takes days or weeks to clone a software product using AI, any good idea will soon face dozens of lookalikes. Simply having a cool technology or a working app does not guarantee users or revenue.

The marketplace, whether for consumer apps or B2B biotech services, is saturated with options, content, and noise. Gaining the attention and trust of your target customers has become the hardest part of running a startup. Marketing channels like SEO, social media, and content marketing are crowded with everyone shouting for visibility. Distribution tactics that worked a few years ago, like cheap online ads or viral social campaigns, have become more expensive and less reliable.

Furthermore, if AI and cloud tools handle the "heavy lifting" of coding and infrastructure, startups must compete on other fronts: customer experience, brand, community, and domain expertise. Differentiation becomes critical. What unique value or story does your company have that cannot be instantly replicated?

This is especially true in biotech, where trust and credibility are paramount. For instance, if five labs can all engineer a similar molecule, the one that will win is the one that aligns its product with a clear unmet need, demonstrates superior results, or secures key partnerships, not just the one that succeeded in the lab first.

Why Go-to-Market Execution Is So Challenging (Especially in Biotech)

Designing a go-to-market strategy involves many moving parts that are outside the comfort zone of most first-time founders. It means identifying the right target market niche, crafting a compelling value proposition, choosing the right channels to reach buyers, and often, building a brand from scratch.

Unlike coding, there is no clear documentation or API for securing customers. It's a trial-and-error process that requires understanding human behavior, industry dynamics, and timing. Below are some of the biggest go-to-market hurdles and how they manifest in general tech vs. biotech startups:

Market Need and Positioning

In general tech, a founder might build an app because they can, then scramble to find who really needs it. Great companies, however, start with a keen insight into a customer problem. This is even more pronounced in biotech: a brilliant scientific innovation is not a business unless it addresses a real market gap, such as a disease with no cure or a manufacturing inefficiency in pharma.

Biotech founders must articulate why their product matters in terms of patient outcomes, cost savings, or new capabilities, and often to an audience of non-scientists including investors, regulators, and business partners. Failing to do so can lead to the dreaded "no market need" outcome.

Regulatory and Validation Hurdles

A typical software app can launch to users immediately and iteratively improve. Biotech products like drugs, diagnostics, and medical devices usually face regulatory approval processes, clinical trials, and the need to demonstrate safety and efficacy. This dramatically slows the feedback loop.

It also means go-to-market planning must start early. You might need a strategy to manage clinical trial publicity, regulatory lobbying, or early access programs years before the product is sold. According to industry data, it still takes on average 10-15 years to develop a new medicine and get it approved for market. No amount of AI can fully shortcut that. Founders need patience and a plan to survive the long valley of death between R&D and revenue.

Distribution Channels

In the web and software world, distribution might mean app stores, viral sharing, or online ads. In biotech, distribution often requires physical supply chains and industry relationships. For instance, a startup engineering a new therapeutic molecule will eventually need manufacturing facilities, cold chain logistics, and sales reps reaching out to doctors or hospitals.

Many biotech startups wisely choose partnerships with larger companies at this stage. In fact, the vast majority of young biotechs collaborate with big pharmaceutical partners to launch and distribute their products, tapping into those partners' established salesforce, distribution channels, and expertise in navigating hospital purchasing or insurance reimbursement. This can accelerate market access, though it often means giving up some control or revenue share.

Brand and Credibility

Consumers might download a cool app on a whim, but in healthcare and B2B sectors, buyers are more cautious. A hospital will not adopt a new diagnostic device from an unknown startup without strong evidence and endorsements. Trust is critical.

Biotech startups need to build credibility through scientific publications, clinical trial results, key opinion leader support, and quality certifications. Marketing in these industries is less about flashy ads and more about education and evidence. Startups must often attend conferences, publish data, and engage in thought leadership to be taken seriously. This is time-consuming but necessary to overcome the "why should we trust you with patients or critical data?" question.

Competitive Moats

When technology becomes commoditized, as AI coding tools threaten to commoditize software development, sustainable advantage comes from things like network effects, proprietary data, intellectual property, or community loyalty.

In tech startups, this might mean focusing on building a user community or leveraging data network effects, such as improving an AI model with unique datasets. In biotech, intellectual property (patents) and know-how form the moat.

For example, Hyasynth Bio, led by CEO Kevin Chen, didn't just prove yeast could make cannabinoids. The company built an IP portfolio on many cannabinoid variants and gained a head start in fermentation techniques. One strategic choice Hyasynth made was targeting production of CBD, a cannabinoid with large established demand, rather than an easier but less market-proven molecule. Competitors took the technically easier route of making CBG, a precursor, but CBG lacked a strong existing market. By focusing on the molecule with clear market need despite its harder biology, Hyasynth positioned itself with a more immediately valuable offering.

This highlights how aligning your product to real market demand and securing IP can differentiate you in a competitive field.

Go-to-Market Strategies for Startup Success

How can startups, especially in biotech, navigate the treacherous commercialization phase? There is no one-size-fits-all plan, but there are proven strategies and choices founders should consider early on:

Plan Your Route to Market Early

Founders should define how they will reach and sell to customers well before the product is finished. For biotech, this includes deciding whether to go alone or partner. A recent industry analysis noted that nearly 66% of drug launches fail to meet sales expectations in the first year, often because companies overestimate "build it and they will come."

Successful innovators plan early: Will you build a sales force, partner with a bigger player, or position for acquisition? This "route-to-market" decision should be considered by mid-development, such as Phase 2 in drug development, not after approval. Each route has trade-offs.

For instance, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals chose to build its own commercial infrastructure to launch its first RNAi drug, gaining full control and full costs of marketing. In contrast, Loxo Oncology partnered with Bayer to launch its cancer therapy, leveraging Bayer's global reach while Loxo focused on R&D. Both paths yielded successful launches; the right choice depends on your company's strengths, resources, and long-term vision.

Invest in Marketing and Customer Development

It sounds obvious, but many technical founders treat marketing as an afterthought. Start marketing early by engaging potential customers or end-users even during development. This could mean building an online presence through blogs, social media, and community to attract interest, or in biotech, talking to physicians and researchers to gauge demand and refine your positioning.

If your product is enterprise or B2B, begin with a narrow beachhead market: a small set of customers who have acute need and will serve as case studies. Content marketing and education is powerful, especially for scientific products: publish whitepapers, demo results, and use storytelling to explain why your innovation matters.

Remember that marketing in startups isn't about big budgets; it's about creativity and understanding your niche.

Differentiate Your Product and Brand

In a crowded field, ask what makes us truly unique? This could be a technical differentiation like a patent, an algorithm, or exclusive rights to some data, but it can also be a brand or mission.

For example, some biotech startups succeed by branding themselves around quality or ethical standards, like sourcing sustainably or being exceptionally transparent about data, which certain customer segments value. Others find a unique angle in business model, such as offering a service on top of the product, like not just selling a lab device but selling it "as-a-service" with monthly support and analytics.

Brand building is not just for consumer companies; even in B2B, a strong brand, including reputation, thought leadership, and recognizability, can tip decisions in your favor. This often comes from consistency in delivering on promises, public relations, and building trust over time.

Leverage Strategic Partnerships

Especially in biotech, partnerships can dramatically amplify a startup's reach. This might include commercial distribution deals, co-development agreements, or research collaborations. A small diagnostics startup might partner with a large diagnostics company to co-market its test. A therapeutics startup might license its drug to Big Pharma after Phase 2 trials in exchange for royalties, letting the partner handle Phase 3 and sales.

There's also the route of partnering with contract research organizations (CROs) and contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs) to avoid heavy capital investment while scaling. The key is to identify what your company is best at, such as discovery or a specific technology, and partner for the rest.

Hyasynth Bio, for instance, secured investment and partnership from Organigram, a large cannabis industry firm, early in its journey, providing capital and a future channel for its bio-synthesized cannabinoids. Such alliances not only provide resources but also validate your technology in the eyes of the market.

Build an Agile Organization

Go-to-market execution requires a different skill set than R&D. Founders should consider bringing on team members or advisors with marketing, sales, and regulatory experience. It's often said that the team that invents a drug is not the team that commercializes it.

In practice, this might mean hiring a business development lead who has launched products in your space, or a marketing lead who deeply understands your customer segment. Organizational agility is important too. Once you launch, be ready to iterate on your strategy. If a sales channel isn't working, try another. If messaging falls flat, pivot your narrative. Keep a close feedback loop with your initial customers and be willing to adjust everything from product features to pricing model to better fit the market.

The Biotech Founder's Balancing Act

For biotech entrepreneurs, the journey from lab bench to marketplace is a high-wire act. You must harness cutting-edge science and technology, including AI, automation, and data, to build the product faster and smarter than ever before. Then you must spend even more effort on the human side of the equation: convincing others to adopt your innovation.

Scispot's contribution under Guru Singh's leadership is a great example of enabling speed on the R&D side. By providing an all-in-one, no-code data platform, Scispot helps life science startups get their digital infrastructure and AI insights in place quickly. This can compress timelines for lab work, data analysis, and even compliance. But once that infrastructure and product are ready, the real work begins in the boardroom and the marketplace.

Commercialization in biotech has its own timeline and rules. You cannot simply blitzscale a new therapy like a social media app. Patience and strategy are paramount. As one venture capitalist quipped, "You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant." Some processes just take time.

However, that doesn't mean a founder should be passive. Preparing the market is as important as preparing the product. Educate stakeholders early, line up partnerships, ensure you have the regulatory roadmaps and market access figured out. If you do this homework, by the time your product is technically ready, your customers will be ready too.

Key Takeaways for Founders

Embrace AI Tools but Don't Confuse Product with Business AI tools have democratized and accelerated product development, making it possible to launch an MVP in days. Use these tools from no-code platforms to AI coding assistants to validate your idea quickly, but don't confuse having a product with having a business.

Focus on the 98%: Distribution, Marketing, and Differentiation Building a product is often just 1-2% of the journey. The other 98% requires mastering distribution, marketing, and differentiation. Lack of market fit or poor marketing is behind more than half of startup failures, so plan for traction early.

Differentiation Is Critical in a Crowded Market If your product can be easily copied, your advantage must come from understanding your customer better or executing better. Find a unique value proposition or niche that sets you apart.

Plan Biotech Commercialization Early For biotech startups, commercialization is the toughest nut to crack. Lengthy regulatory cycles and the need for trust mean you should begin go-to-market planning well in advance. Often, partnering with established players or experts is the smart move to bridge gaps in distribution and credibility.

Invest in Go-to-Market Like You Invest in R&D That means talking to customers, refining your pitch, building a brand presence, and possibly hiring or consulting people with launch experience. Consider the route-to-market options, whether to partner or go solo, early and align your strategy with that choice.

Innovation Succeeds When Paired with Execution The history of startups shows many technically superior products lost out to inferior ones with better marketing or timing. Don't let "build and they will come" be your downfall. Iterate not just on the product, but on how you sell and deliver it.

The Future of AI-Accelerated Startups

In an AI-accelerated startup world, the barrier to building has never been lower. This is fantastic news for founders, who can now channel more of their energy into solving the right problems rather than reinventing the technical wheel. However, this also means the playing field is more level, and the real winners will be those who excel at the age-old fundamentals: understanding customer needs, crafting a compelling story, and delivering value at scale.

For every entrepreneur, and especially those in complex fields like biotech, the message is clear: embrace the new tools, but never forget that the ultimate metric of success is not a working prototype, it's a product that succeeds in the market. Achieving that requires as much ingenuity in go-to-market strategy as in lab or code, if not more.

With the right balance, today's startups can leverage AI's speed and execute with strategic rigor, turning breakthrough ideas into scalable, impactful businesses. The future belongs to founders who can build fast and market smart, combining the best of both worlds to create lasting value in the marketplace.