You can watch the full conversation here: Product and User Experience, how to make a cure and not a vitamin with Greg Raiz
From Friction to Fire: Turning UX Into a Cure, Not a Vitamin
One of the core principles that guides our investment thesis at Incisive Ventures is a relentless focus on real pain—not superficial annoyances or nice-to-haves, but deeply embedded inefficiencies or frustrations in workflows, industries, or human behavior. Problems with “hair on fire” urgency.
That’s why this recent conversation I had with Greg Raiz, a longtime product thinker, successful founder, and now fellow VC and LP in my fund, resonated deeply.
Greg and I sat down for a frank, tactical conversation on what separates a “vitamin” startup (a nice-to-have, easily discarded solution) from a “cure” (a must-have that solves a real, acute need). This wasn’t theory—it was a grounded exchange between two operators-turned-investors who’ve built software, sold software, and now fund the next wave of it.
Why UX Still Sucks (and Why That’s Good for Founders)
Greg’s background in user experience runs deep—he was on the XP team at Microsoft, studied emotional design before it was cool, and later built a successful UX consultancy during the rise of mobile. His thesis is simple: most enterprise software still sucks to use, and great UX, when coupled with meaningful AI infrastructure, creates exponential opportunity. It’s not enough to build tools that work—they need to be intuitive, fast, and mapped to how people want to work.
That insight has driven both of our investing. The best AI products aren’t just wrappers around LLMs—they’re intuitive, real-time, and workflow-native. Greg gave the example of Quintes AI—a voice-first interface for railroad technicians to log maintenance, cutting their documentation time by 20%. Not sexy. Hugely valuable. That’s a cure.
Finding Cures in Unexpected Places
We talked through multiple examples of companies solving previously intractable problems—ones that couldn’t be solved before AI made unstructured-to-structured data transformation economically viable.
My example: IVQ, which is tackling the $2 trillion market of local government procurement. It’s not a sexy vertical, but their AI-based data extraction from PDFs and Zoom transcripts enables a structured, searchable purchasing database where none existed before. If you’re trying to sell chairs to a school district, knowing when tables are up for bid is gold. That’s what I mean when I say “listen for friction in the world.”
What Makes Founders Fundable at Pre-Seed
We both agreed: most great companies don’t have product-market fit at pre-seed. And that’s okay. What matters is speed of learning, quality of insight, and a deep understanding of the domain. The strongest founders we back are more obsessed with the problem than the solution. They’re former operators who lived the pain and are now hell-bent on removing it. They don’t need to convince us with a polished pitch—they pull us in with their clarity, urgency, and command of the space.
Greg’s advice is practical and actionable. Prototype fast. Run “Wizard of Oz” tests. Fake the backend and test the frontend. Put dead links on your site and watch who clicks. It’s not about perfection—it’s about velocity and signal.
Stop Building for Edge Cases
We also both shared skepticism about entire categories of “meh” startups—particularly those born from cool tech, not real need. Greg called out transcription bots as a prime example. Lots of tools can now transcribe Zoom calls, but unless you’re mapping that transcription into an existing, painful workflow (like doctor’s charting), it’s just noise.
I’ve seen the same in countless AI-first pitches. The tech works. The market doesn’t care. It’s like selling sunglasses in Seattle—possible, but not scalable.
Advice for Founders: Equity Is a Product
One of my favorite takeaways from our chat was this: “Your product is equity.” You’re not begging for money. You’re offering ownership in your business to the people who can help make it more valuable. Think of your cap table as a high-performance team—not a list of names.
For founders in the AI era, that means you need to be ruthless about what makes your use case urgent, actionable, and monetizable. You have a limited window where speed is your edge over incumbents. Use it.
TL;DR
- Friction is a signal. The best startups solve painful, expensive, recurring problems—not abstract inefficiencies.
- Great UX isn’t optional. It’s a wedge into broken legacy workflows.
- AI isn’t the product. It’s the enabler. The product is the outcome.
- Speed wins. Build fast, validate faster. Iterate like your life depends on it.
- Equity is your product. Sell it to people who make your company more valuable.
If you’re building in this space—AI-enabled tools solving real business pain—we want to hear from you. Find me on Twitter, or hit reply to this post.
Let’s go build more cures.
— Martin Tobias
Managing Partner, Incisive Ventures
