Not hype or demos, but what’s actually compounding.
I spent the week digging into the Lean AI Leaderboard—a public snapshot of AI-native startups with real traction. Revenue. Retention. Execution.
Here are 10 patterns we keep seeing from the companies pulling ahead:
1) Small teams. Median headcount: 23. Fast ships, low drag.
2) 2–3 co-founders. Technical + product + GTM, together from day one.
3) Revenue in month one. They’re not waiting to charge.
4) No dashboards. They embed into existing workflows.
5) $1–3M per employee. Yes, really.
6) They’re not building models. They’re wrapping them in workflow, UX, and distribution.
7) Some never raised a priced round. Optionality > overcapitalization.
8) Vertical AI is outperforming. Legal, healthcare, logistics—painful, regulated, sticky.
9) Infra isn’t the pitch. It’s just what lets the product scale.
10) They execute like survival depends on it—because it does.
If you’re early-stage right now, this is your playbook:
Start lean. Embed deep. Monetize fast.
Design for trust, retention, and compounding usage—not just DAUs.
These aren’t demo companies. They’re real businesses.
And they’re setting the pace.
Big thanks to Henry Shi for compiling the Lean AI Leaderboard.
If you’re building something lean, embedded, and hard to kill—drop it in the comments.
This post was originally shared by on Linkedin.