Hi Reader,

Welcome to Hal9 Weekly — insights from our founder Javier on turning AI ideas into real products.

Javier's Insights:

The AI Giants Are Coming for Every Market. That's Not the Threat You Think It Is.

Claude launched a designer tool last week. Figma's stock dropped the same day.

And everyone's been asking me if this changes the AI landscape.

Honestly? No. This is the same conversation we've been having since 2023.

LLM providers are going to keep swallowing use cases — legal docs, coding, design, building apps, and eventually, probably even building MVPs. That's not news. That's the trend.

The real question isn't whether OpenAI or Anthropic are coming for your market. They absolutely are. The question is what you're doing about it.

Your job as a SaaS company isn't to compete with OpenAI on being OpenAI. It's to do a better job than them for a narrower segment — with features they won't build, innovation they won't prioritize, and business models that actually fit your specific customers.

Figma knew this was coming. Every vertical SaaS company knows this is coming.

You can't keep shipping what you've been shipping and expect to survive. You have to be smarter about how you leverage AI for the specific customers you serve.

The companies that win over the next 12 months aren't the ones who panic every time a foundation model ships a new feature. They're the ones who've already figured out where they're sharper than a general-purpose model — and doubled down there.

Where are you sharper than ChatGPT for your customers?

Customer Success Story: TapIn

From Fuzzy Vision to Fashion Week MVP — In Weeks

TapIn is building something genuinely difficult: a social platform that connects people through local events and shared interests, bridging the gap between online connections and real-world engagement. Think finding a concert companion who's actually going to show up.

Founder James Kung had a prototype and a vision — but also an unclear roadmap and a build path that threatened to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars before a single user was onboarded.

The Challenge: Transform a complex social platform concept into a focused, testable MVP — fast enough to debut at New York Fashion Week, and lean enough to survive on a startup budget.

Hal9 helped TapIn:

🚀 Build a working AI-powered local event matching MVP in weeks, not months

💡 Simplify the product vision into a focused, testable core — matching users by proximity and shared interests

🌐 Launch a web-based MVP instead of an expensive mobile app, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in early development costs

🎪 Test live at New York Fashion Week, gathering real user feedback to sharpen the product

📱 Lay the technical groundwork for future mobile expansion and AI-driven automated matching

The result? TapIn went from a complicated mockup to a live, event-tested product — without burning through their runway on a mobile build they didn't need yet. The platform is now positioned to scale, with Hal9 continuing as a long-term technical partner.

Let’s Talk

Got an AI idea/building something and want to chat about it?

Book a free consultation with Javier — he’ll help you validate it before you build, so you don’t lose time chasing the wrong version.

Talk soon,

—The Hal9 Team