Patrick Collison: Why This Is the Best Time in History to Start a Company

For years, entrepreneurs have operated under a familiar narrative: the best opportunities are gone.

The internet is saturated. Big Tech controls everything. Venture funding is harder. AI giants will eventually own the market.

And yet, according to Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison, the data tells a completely different story.

In a recent conversation with Replit CEO Amjad Masad, Collison shared something that should grab the attention of every aspiring entrepreneur: startup creation is not slowing down—it’s accelerating at a historic pace. In fact, the current wave appears larger than the entrepreneurial surge triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

For wantrepreneurs sitting on an idea and waiting for the "right time," this may be the strongest argument yet that the future belongs to builders.

The Most Underappreciated Economic Trend Right Now

Most discussions about AI focus on job displacement, model capabilities, or the race between OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.

Collison is looking somewhere else.

He believes one of the most overlooked economic trends is the rapid acceleration of entrepreneurship itself. Stripe, which helps power more than 25% of newly formed Delaware corporations, has a unique vantage point into business formation. From that perspective, the numbers are striking.

During the pandemic, new business creation on Stripe jumped roughly 50% year-over-year.

Most observers assumed that surge would eventually normalize.

It didn't.

Instead, startup formation remained elevated and then accelerated again. According to Collison, recent business creation rates on Stripe have nearly doubled year-over-year—a larger spike than the one created by pandemic lockdowns.

That raises an obvious question:

Why are so many people starting companies now?

The answer appears to be AI.

AI Isn't Just Creating Companies—It's Compressing Time

One of the most powerful insights from the discussion wasn't simply that more companies are being created.

It's that successful companies are reaching meaningful milestones dramatically faster.

Historically, startups spent years chasing their first million dollars in recurring revenue.

Today's AI-native startups are hitting those milestones in a fraction of the time.

According to Collison, when comparing modern AI startups against previous SaaS and marketplace eras, the time required to reach major revenue milestones has been cut roughly in half.

That's a profound shift.

For decades, entrepreneurship was constrained by three major barriers:

• Building software
• Hiring talent
• Raising capital

AI is steadily reducing the first two.

What once required an engineering team can increasingly be accomplished by a founder armed with domain expertise and the right tools.

That's changing who gets to participate in entrepreneurship.

The Rise of the Domain Expert Founder

One of the most interesting themes from the conversation was the emergence of founders who aren't traditional software engineers.

Masad highlighted examples from Replit's ecosystem:

• A teacher who built an AI-powered education platform that grew into a major company.
• An entrepreneur building software specifically for ice-skating rinks.
• Founders creating niche solutions for yoga instructors and local communities.

These aren't stereotypical Silicon Valley startup ideas.

They're examples of something Collison has believed for years:

Many industries remain dramatically underserved by modern software.

While venture capital often gravitates toward large, obvious markets, countless sectors still rely on outdated workflows, legacy systems, and clunky software built decades ago.

That creates opportunity.

Lots of it.

Why Vertical SaaS Might Still Be One of the Biggest Opportunities

When asked what he'd build if he were starting from scratch today, Collison returned to a familiar theme: vertical SaaS.

His reasoning is simple.

Many industries have never fully benefited from the internet revolution.

Their software is outdated.

Their workflows are fragmented.

Their user experiences are terrible.

Now combine those problems with AI.

The founder who deeply understands a specific industry—healthcare, education, logistics, construction, hospitality, fitness, agriculture—can suddenly build solutions that were previously impossible without a large engineering organization.

This is where many of tomorrow's entrepreneurial success stories will emerge.

Not from creating another social network.

But from solving painful, specific problems for underserved markets.

The Billion-Dollar Company With Two People

Perhaps the most provocative prediction from the discussion was the idea of the "two-person billion-dollar company."

For years, startup culture celebrated scale through headcount.

More employees meant more success.

AI may be rewriting that equation.

Tools are increasingly handling:

• Coding
• Customer support
• Operations
• Marketing workflows
• Internal processes

As a result, founders can stay lean while generating significantly more output.

Masad predicts we'll see far more businesses generating enormous value with tiny teams. Collison appears largely aligned with that view.

For entrepreneurs, that means leverage is becoming more important than labor.

The question is no longer:

"How many people can I hire?"

It's becoming:

"How much can a small team accomplish?"

The Mistake Founders Keep Making

Every generation of entrepreneurs finds a reason not to start.

Collison pointed out that Silicon Valley has been surrounded by existential fears for decades:

• Japan would dominate technology.
• Microsoft would own everything.
• The internet bubble destroyed startup opportunities.
• Google and Facebook became too powerful.
• Venture capital would dry up.
• COVID would reshape everything.
• Now AI labs will capture all value.

And yet through every one of those cycles, transformative companies were still built.

That's a critical lesson.

The biggest threat to entrepreneurship is rarely competition.

It's paralysis.

Waiting for certainty.

Waiting for perfect timing.

Waiting for permission.

The founders who win usually start before the future is obvious.

What Founders Should Do Next

If you're a wantrepreneur wondering where to focus, Collison's advice can be distilled into three practical principles:

1. Start Something

The cost of experimentation has never been lower.

Build. Test. Learn.

Don't wait.

2. Find Industries Software Has Ignored

Look for markets where people still complain about the tools they use every day.

Those complaints are often hidden opportunities.

3. Pay Attention to Emerging Behavior

Collison highlighted a useful mental model:

Look for things that are popular among young people but still low status.

Those are often markets incumbents ignore—until it's too late.

The Bottom Line

The most important takeaway from this conversation isn't about AI.

It's about optimism.

Patrick Collison sees a world where entrepreneurship is accelerating, startup formation is exploding, and individuals have access to capabilities that would have required entire organizations just a few years ago.

The barriers are falling.

The tools are improving.

The opportunities are multiplying.

For entrepreneurs, that doesn't guarantee success.

But it does mean one thing:

The excuse that "all the good ideas are gone" has never been weaker.